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The  Respective  Standpoints 
of  Psychology  and  Logic 


(By  ^ 

MA  TILDE  CASTRO 


PHILOSOPHIC  STUDIES 

ISSUED  UNDER  THE  DIRECTION  OF  THE  DEPARTMENT  OF 
PHILOSOPHY  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 

NUMBER  4 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


Agents 

THE  BAKER  &  TAYLOR  COMPANY,  New  Yotk 
THE  CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS,  London  and  Edinburgh 


V  ' 


\ 

( 

1 


The  Department  of  Philosophy  of  the  University  of  Chicago  issues 
a  series  of  monographs  in  philosophy,  including  ethics,  logic,  and  meta¬ 
physics,  aesthetics,  and  the  history  of  philosophy.  The  successive 
monographs  are  numbered  consecutively  with  a  view  to  their  subsequent 
publication  in  volumes.  These  studies  are  similar  to  the  series  of 
Contributions  to  Philosophy,  but  do  not  contain  psychological  papers  or 
reprints  of  articles  previously  published. 


THE  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


THE  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF 
PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


MATILDE  CASTRO 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO  PRESS 
CHICAGO,  ILLINOIS 


Copyright  1913  By 
The  University  of  Chicago 


All  Rights  Reserved 
Published  April  1913 


Composed  and  Printed  By 
The  University  of  Chicago  Press 
Chicago,  Illinois,  U.S.A. 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction. — The  Problem .  9 

1.  The  significance  of  the  problem. 

2.  The  dependence  of  the  more  ultimate  metaphysical  and  epistemological 
issues  upon  it. 

3.  The  coincidence  of  the  problems  of  metaphysics,  epistemology,  and 
logic. 

4.  The  claim  of  functional  psychology  to  be  identical  with  instrumental 
logic. 

5.  The  difference  between  the  metaphysical  corollaries  of  instrumental  logic 
and  those  of  the  traditional  psychological  standpoint. 

‘  6.  If  continuous  with  instrumental  logic,  functional  psychology  must  break 
with  the  commonly  accepted  psychological  standpoint. 

7.  There  are  no  available  definitions  of  logic  and  psychology. 

8.  A  feasible  method  of  determining  their  interrelationship  is  to  follow  psy¬ 
chology  through  typical  stages  of  its  development  to  a  point  where  it 
appears  to  coincide  with  instrumental  logic; 

9.  then,  to  determine  how  far  it  does  assume  the  problem  central  to  this 
logic; 

10.  and,  finally,  to  inquire  how  far  its  treatment  of  the  problem  yields 
satisfactory  consequences  for  the  instrumentalist’s  interpretation  of 
thought  and  reality. 

Chapter  I. — The  Premises  of  Psychology  ......  16 

1.  The  development  of  psychology  as  influenced  by  the  necessity  for  an 
account  of  thought  which  should  make  real  and  valid  knowledge  possible. 

2.  Psychology  is  now  equipped  with  a  cognitive  unit  which  retains  all  the 
characteristics  of  the  idea  of  the  associationists  while  possessing  attri¬ 
butes  which  give  promise  of  making  it  an  adequate  tool  of  knowledge. 

3.  The  plausibility  of  psychology’s  claim  to  be  identical  with  instrumental 
logic. 

4.  If  psychology  assumes  the  task  of  logic  it  must  face  problems  which  it 
has  hitherto  deemed  out  of  its  province. 

5.  To  deal  with  these  problems  satisfactorily,  it  must  revise  its  initial 
premises. 

6.  If  the  “idea”  as  the  psychologist  describes  it  does  not,  when  put  to 
work  in  the  judgment,  yield  consequences  acceptable  to  instrumental 
logic,  psychology  and  this  logic  are  not  one. 

5 


6 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Chapter  II. — The  Idea  in  Psychology . 28 

1.  If  psychology  is  identical  with  logic  it  must  discuss  the  relation  of  the 
idea  to  reality. 

2.  The  psychologist’s  distinction  of  idea  into  “image”  and  “meaning” 
lends  itself  to  this  purpose. 

3.  The  ambiguity  in  the  psychologist’s  treatment  of  “image.” 

4.  The  “image”  is  ascribed  an  indifferent  function  in  the  knowledge 
process. 

5.  “Meaning,”  in  turn,  does  not  aid  in  revealing  the  relation  of  thought 
to  reality. 

6.  The  limitations  of  the  psychologist’s  cognitive  unit. 

7.  Logic  cannot  accept  the  “idea”  as  the  psychologist  delivers  it. 

8.  Logic  must  reinterpret  not  only  “idea,”  but  “reality”  also. 

Chapter  III. — The  Locus  of  the  Psychologist’s  Standpoint  41 

1.  The  logical  situation  from  which  the  psychologist  gets  his  data. 

2.  The  psychologist’s  dualism  of  thought  and  thing. 

3.  The  logician’s  interpretation  of  this  dualism. 

4.  The  judgment  as  the  expression  of  the  existential  moment  of  reality; 
the  objectivity,  permanence,  and  universality  of  thought. 

5.  The  psychologist’s  view  of  thought  as  an  inner  process  reflecting  an 
external  reality  order. 

6.  Thought  as  a  constituent  and  constitutive  part  of  a  single  reality- 
process  to  be  stated  only  from  the  standpoint  of  the  logician’s  premises 
and  technique. 

Chapter  IV. — The  Nature  of  the  Psychologist’s  “Processes”  53 

1.  The  realism  and  idealism  of  instrumental  logic  versus  the  subjective 
idealism  or  the  naive  realism  of  psychology. 

2.  Psychology’s  inability  to  handle  thought  as  a  genuine  process. 

3.  The  transitive  states,  association,  etc.,  not  genuine  processes  for  the 
psychologist. 

4.  The  place  of  these  processes  in  the  representative  phase  of  the  judg¬ 
mental  situation. 

Chapter  V. — Typical  Statements  of  the  Relationship  .  .  59 

1.  The  earlier  form  of  the  problem. 

2.  The  greater  or  lesser  comprehensiveness  of  logic  and  psychology. 

3.  The  art-science  distinction. 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


7 


4.  Psychology  and  logic  as  equally  concerned  with  reflection  upon  cog¬ 
nition. 

5.  Reflection  and  introspection — introspection  a  standpoint,  not  a  method. 

6.  The  normative-positive  distinction — the  fallacy  common  to  both 
disputants. 

7.  Psychology  as  specific  and  concrete  versus  logic  as  general  and  abstract. 

8.  The  confusion  of  “psychical”  with  “psychological.” 

9.  The  Psychologist en-Formalisten  dispute — the  absolutist-pragmatist 
controversy. 

10.  The  common  fallacy  as  to  the  nature  of  the  individual. 

11.  The  bearing  of  this  reinterpretation  of  the  individual  on  the  pragmatist’s 
criterion  of  truth  and  interpretation  of  reality. 


J 


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INTRODUCTION 

THE  PROBLEM 

The  determination  of  the  status  of  relationship  obtaining  between 
logic  and  psychology  is  a  problem  of  such  vital  import  to  philosophy, 
in  general,  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  consider  any  phase  of  it  without 
touching  live  wires  of  epistemological  and  metaphysical  controversy. 
Indeed,  it  has  become  the  practice  of  contemporary  philosophical 
criticism  to  trace  back  any  fundamental  divergence  of  views  respecting 
the  more  ultimate  issues  of  philosophy  to  a  difference  in  premise  regard¬ 
ing  this  relationship.  Are  we  doomed  to  strain  our  vision  toward  an 
absolute  reality,  whose  lineaments  remain  forever  beyond  the  threshold 
of  our  experiential  sensibility,  and  to  grasp  after,  yet  never  hold,  that 
eternally  elusive  cup  of  Tantalus,  Truth,  universal  and  immutable; 
or  may  we  look  into  the  familiar  and  homely  countenance  of  reality 
whenever  we  face  a  practical  problem,  and  refresh  ourselves  with  truth 
at  every  step  of  the  traveled  road  ?  These  two  philosophical  attitudes 
represent  the  extreme  limits  within  which  present-day  epistemological 
and  metaphysical  discussion  falls.  The  logic  basal  to  the  latter,  the 
pragmatic,  formulation  of  the  nature  of  truth  and  reality,  asserts  that 
the  judgment  taken  in  its  concrete  everyday  setting  will  reveal,  actually 
operative,  now  as  ever,  the  formative  forces  of  reality;  that  only  through 
such  a  study  of  reality-in-process-of-formation  and  of  truth-in-operation 
can  the  nature  of  either  be  discovered.  Absolutism,  however,  insists 
that  this  amounts  to  nothing  more  than  the  analysis  of  a  psychological 
•  process,  and,  as  such,  can  never  yield  data  for  an  adequate  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  reality.  Thus,  pragmatism  points  the  finger  of  warning  at  the 
empty  and  futile  metaphysical  consequences  which  ensue  when  logic 
deserts  the  standpoint  of  the  individual  experient,  to  search  for  truth 
in  a  realm  of  a  never-to-be-experienced  reality,  and  absolutism,  in  turn, 
continues  to  charge  pragmatism  with  building  upon  a  logic  so  corrupted 
by  its  affiliation  with  psychology  that  it  must  forfeit  the  use  of  the 
categories  of  universality  and  necessity,  and  must  abandon  all  hope  of 
exhibiting  anything  worthy  the  name  of  objectivity. 

It  is  obvious  that  logic  and  psychology  play  leading  roles  in  the 
philosophical  drama  of  today— that  the  dispute  as  to  the  nature  of 
their  interrelation  affords  the  setting,  as  it  were,  for  the  final  ‘  confronta¬ 
tion  of  forces,’  upon  whose  resolution  hangs  the  fate  of  current  philo- 


9 


lo  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


sophical  systems.  There  is  a  suggestive  concreteness  and  openness  to 
attack  in  the  reduction  of  the  larger  philosophical  situation  to  these 
comparatively  simple  terms,  but  the  promised  accessibility  is  somewhat 
illusory,  since  both  psychology  and  logic  are  extending  their  boundaries 
to  include  the  so-called  more  abstract  disciplines  under  their  jurisdiction. 
Thus  there  is  retained  all  the  complexity  of  the  wider  controversy,  for 
all  of  its  factors  are  involved. 

That  a  psychology  which  has  endeavored  to  free  itself  from  meta¬ 
physical  leading-strings  and  which  has  grown  so  remarkably  under  the 
nurture  of  natural  science  should  now  press  its  right  of  dominion  even 
to  the  very  outposts  of  metaphysics  itself,  has  not  a  little  the  effect  of  a 
paradox.^  Nevertheless,  though  this  evolution  of  an  ‘empirical’  psy¬ 
chology  into  metaphysics  may,  at  first  sight,  suggest  rather  an  Alice-in- 
Wonderland  metamorphosis  than  a  genuine  process  of  development, 
the  change  appears  less  abrupt,  when  it  is  borne  in  mind  that  psy¬ 
chology  has  but  to  prove  its  identity  with  logic,  to  accomplish  the 
transformation  easily  and  plausibly ;  for  epistemology  and  metaphysics 
are  indissolubly  one  in  recent  discussion,  and  logic  is  their  basis  of 
operation. 

Metaphysics  and  epistemology  are  today  regarded  as  but  two  modes 
of  approach  to  the  same  problem;  the  consideration  of  the  nature, 
source,  and  function  of  knowledge  involves  the  determination  of  the 
nature  of  reality  and  the  relation  of  thought  to  it.  Metaphysics,  on 
the  other  hand,  cannot  fix  upon  Thought,  or  a  Something-Other,  as 
a  final  and  all-inclusive  ‘ultimate,’  without  showing  what  disposition 
is  to  be  made  of  the  other  term  with  reference  to  it.  In  other  words, 
the  problem  of  knowledge  is  no  longer  that  of  investigating  the  forms 
and  activities  of  pure  thought,  but  is  the  knowledge-of-reality  problem. 
It  is  not  so  evident  that  logic,  especially  that  known  as  instrumental, 
and  more  vaguely  as  pragmatic,  is  thus  closely  allied  with  epistemology 
and  metaphysics.  Yet  it  may  be  said  that,  despite  increasing  and 
seemingly  implacable  feuds  among  logicians  as  to  other  first  principles 
of  logic,  there  is  unanimous  agreement,  at  present,  that  the  judgment 
is  the  unit  of  the  knowledge  process,  and  that  it  can  no  longer  be  defined 
as  the  predication  of  one  idea  of  another,  either  by  way  of  synthesis  or 
analysis.  Rather,  every  judgment  is  held  to  have  existential  import, 
or  is  to  be  defined  as  the  mutual  reference  of  an  ideal  content,  as  predicate, 

^  Angell,  “The  Relations  of  Structural  and  Functional  Psychology  to  Philosophy,” 
University  of  Chicago  Decennial  Publications,  First  Series,  Vol.  Ill,  Part  II,  pp.  18-21 
(page  reference  is  to  monograph  reprint). 


THE  PROBLEM 


II 


to  a  reality,  as  subject.  However  variously  idea  and  reality  may  be 
interpreted  by  different  schools,  the  judgment  so  defined  brings  logic 
into  direct  contact  with  epistemology  and  metaphysics;  for  it  presents 
in  specific  subject-predicate  form  the  problem  central  to  them,  namely, 
the  relation  of  thought  to  reality. 

Instrumental  logic  is,  then,  no  less  epistemological  than  the  logic 
of  absolutism,  against  whose  particular  brand  of  epistemology  it  has 
waged  such  telling  polemic,^  but  whereas  the  latter  finds  it  necessary 
to  transcend  the  conditions  under  which  thought  and  reality  appear  in 
any  concrete  instance  of  judging,  in  order  to  discover  their  true,  that 
is,  their  unconditioned  and  absolute,  nature,  the  former  accepts  the 
subject-predicate  connection  there  found,  as  adequately  representative 
of  the  relation  which  thought  sustains  toward  reality,  anywhere  and 
everywhere.  The  logic  of  absolutism,  that  is,  may  maintain  that  the 
reality  which  appears  as  the  subject  of  the  judgment  is  a  mutilated 
fragment,  torn  and  twisted  from  the  reality  which  lies  in  its  really 
unassailable  entirety  and  continuity  ‘beyond  the  act’  of  judging,  and 
that  thought,  as  it  appears  in  the  form  of  a  predicate,  suffers  from  the 
vicissitudes  of  temporal  circumstance,  and  therefore  falls  short  of 
spanning  universal  and  eternal  truth.  Accordingly,  if  logic  would 
study  thought  as  the  vehicle  of  truth,  absolute,  it  must  abandon  its 
basis  in  the  empirical  judgment,  and  take  on  a  more  epistemological 
character.  It  must,  that  is,  deal  with  thought  ‘at  large’  and  reality 
per  se.  Instrumental  logic,  on  the  contrary,  holds  that  the  judgment, 
in  its  immediate  experiential  setting,  provides  the  conditions  under 
which  thought  and  reality  always  occur  or  exist,  e.g.,  as  comembers 
of  a  distinctive  phase  of  experience,  and  that  the  characteristics  and 
functions  which  they  there  manifest,  and  these  only,  are  revelations  of 
their  true  nature.  From  this  point  of  view,  thought  ‘at  large’  and 
reality  per  se  are  abstractions,  and  not  real  values  functioning  in  experi¬ 
ence.  The  problem  of  establishing  a  relation  between  them  is,  con¬ 
sequently,  purely  a  factitious  one.  Opponents  refuse  to  concede  to 
this  position  anything  approaching  epistemological  dignity,  but  its 
protagonists  assert  that  the  standpoint  and  the  methodology  which  it 
implies  furnish  the  only  mode  of  approach  to  a  valid  epistemology  and 
a  tenable  metaphysics.  Instrumental  logic,  indeed,  regards  itself  as 
a  sort  of  laboratory  in  which  the  ‘elements’  of  metaphysics  may  be 
discovered  through  experimental  observation  of  the  judgment  process, 
and  to  which,  in  turn,  metaphysical  ‘ultimates’  may  be  returned  to 

^  Dewey,  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  chaps,  i-v. 


12  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


be  tested  for  their  ‘workability.’^  Instrumental  logic  thus  becomes  a 
terminus  ad  quern,  as  well  as  a  point  of  departure,  for  metaphysics  and 
epistemology. 

It  is  with  the  logic  which  enters  the  highway  of  metaphysics  via 
the  judgment  in  its  empirical  context  that  functional  psychology  claims 
identity  of  standpoint.^  But  having  chosen  at  the  crossroads,  psy¬ 
chology  must  travel  on  undaunted  even  to  the  Dark  Tower  of  pragma¬ 
tism.  With  its  record  of  sober  scientific  achievement  behind  it,  psy¬ 
chology  may  well  hesitate  to  lay  itself  open  to  the  necessity  of  meeting 
the  characteristic  charges  of  unstable  and  irresponsible  radicalism  so 
often  preferred  against  pragmatism.  Yet  once  casting  its  lot  with  the 
logic  which  is  presumably  basal  to  the  various  pragmatic  formulations, 
it  cannot  hope  to  leave  the  road  open  to  any  metaphysic,  that  is,  it 
cannot  hold  itself  a  prolegomenon  to  metaphysics  in  general,  but  must 
commit  itself  to  some  specific  destination,  namely,  that  which  is  the 
outcome  of  locating  the  real,  and  not  some  mere  transcript,  or  symbol, 
or  minimum  sensible,  of  reality,  wholly  within  experience,  and  of  finding 
truth,  as  absolute  and  eternal  as  you  please,  in  every  successful  per¬ 
formance  of  the  judgment. 

The  chief  indictment  against  this  metaphysical  basis  has  been  that 
it  shuts  reality  up  to  subjectivity,  and  truth  to  the  vagary  of  particu¬ 
larity.  Instrumental  logic  has  repudiated  such  metaphysics  and  func¬ 
tional  psychology  would  hardly  make  a  point  of  proclaiming  this  as 
its  metaphysical  destiny;  for  it  has  long  been  an  accepted  tradition 
that  this  is  precisely  the  type  of  metaphysics  which  results  from  the 
projection  of  the  psychological  standpoint  into  a  world-view.  Now, 
psychology  is  not  a  little  to  blame  for  the  circumstantial  evidence  upon 
which  this  accusation  continues  to  be  based,  for  in  adopting  a  new 
standpoint  it  has  not  made  clear  that  it  has  abandoned  the  old — if 
indeed,  it  has — with  reference  to  which  the  verdict  holds.  The  psy¬ 
chology,  which  interprets  consciousness  as  an  adaptive  mechanism, 
viewing  it  in  its  objective  environment  as  a  process  operative  among 
realities  which  are  not  themselves  ‘states  of  consciousness,’  and  that 
which  deals  with  reality  or  experience  only  as  it  is  transcribed  into  a 
structure  or  process  of  consciousness — these  are  held  not  only  compatible 
but  perfectly  confluent.  This  tendency  to  conciliation  is  a  marked 
feature  of  present-day  psychological  development.  Conservative  and 

^  Dewey,  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  chap.  v. 

*  Angell,  “The  Relations  of  Structural  and  Functional  Psychology  to  Philosophy,” 
University  of  Chicago  Decennial  Publications,  First  Series,  Vol.  Ill,  Part  II,  pp.  13-14 
(page  reference  is  to  monograph  reprint). 


THE  PROBLEM 


13 


radical  at  once,  it  adds  the  new  as  simple  supplement  to  the  old.  Thus 
“idea”  or  “process”  psychology,  and  “self”  psychology  are  regarded 
as  two  parts  of  one  whole,  although  the  introspective  deliverances  of 
the  latter,  if  not  definitely  antithetic  to  the  pronouncements  of  the 
former,  are,  at  least,  facts  available  only  from  a  distinctly  different 
vantage-point.  Functional  psychology,  which  seems  at  times  to  desert 
altogether  the  standpoint  of  the  spectator  of  ‘inner  consciousness’  for 
that  of  the  direct  experient,  offers  protective  shelter  for  them  all.  If 
it  be  true,  however,  that  no  radical  shift  in  viewpoint,  or  fundamental 
change  in  premise,  is  necessary  in  passing  from  one  type  of  psychology 
to  another,  then  there  is,  we  take  it,  a  conspicuous  break  in  the  continuity 
between  functional  psychology  and  instrumental  logic. 

Whatever  constructions  or  misconstructions  have  been  erected  upon 
it,  instrumental  logic  as  it  appears  in  the  Studies  in  Logical  Theory 
and  free  from  the  subsequent  accretion  of  corollaries,  is  not  one  with 
psychology.  The  ‘world-picture’  which  this  logic  paints  has  little  in 
common  with  the  pattern  drafted  after  the  ordinarily  accepted  psycho¬ 
logical  measurements;  its  individualism,  empiricism,  and  idealism  take 
on  a  different  coloring  from  an  eye  which  looks  upon  experience  as  wider 
than  personal  consciousness,  and  upon  the  individual  as  larger  than 
subjectivity.  Exponents  of  this  logic  have,  it  is  true,  acknowledged 
freely  the  influence  which  psychology,  in  its  recent  development,  has 
had  in  shaping  logical  problems.^  However,  the  influence  has  not 
been  one-sided.  Logical  theory  in  searching  for  an  interpretation  of 
thought  which  shall  invest  it  with  the  function  of  securing  genuine 
knowledge  of  reality,  and  not  some  copy  or  representation  of  it,  has 
been  testing  the  psychologist’s  account  of  the  structure  and  function 
of  consciousness.  Taking  this  description  of  the  mental  .machinery, 
the  logician  has  been  asking:  “If  this  is  the  kind  of  thing  thought  is, 
if  it  has  such  characteristics  as  you  study  it,  what  can  it  do,  what  is  the 
result  of  its  work,  what  is  it  good  for,  in  the  world  to  which  I  must 
translate  it,  the  world  of  active  endeavor  and  first-hand  contact  with 
reality  ?”  By  this  procedure,  it  may  be  contended  that  logic  is  finding 
itself,  but  that  it  is  at  the  same  time  discovering  to  psychology  the 
fuller  intent  and  import  of  its  own  formulations.  Psychology,  however, 
admits  no  such  reciprocity  of  favor,  for  it  now  claims  to  study  thought 
in  just  these  aspects,  to  pursue  it,  indeed,  to  the  outermost  rim  of  reality. 
Psychology’s  ‘stream  of  thought’  threatens  to  rise  from  its  bed  in  the 
states  and  processes  of  consciousness,  to  overflow  its  embankment,  the 
“as  such,”  and  to  inundate  the  field  of  reality  itself.  Will  the  waters 

*  Dewey,  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology,  and  Scientific  Methods,  I,  No.  3, 
p.  60. 


14  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


recede,  leaving  the  philosophical  soil  more  fertile  and  ready  for  newer 
and  better  demarkations,  if  convenience  calls  for  them,  or  will  the  river 
carry  away  in  its  Heraclitean  flux  of  ‘ever-changing’  ‘personal’  states, 
all  landmarks  of  truth  and  signposts  to  reality?  Psychology  affords 
assurance  of  the  former,  those  hostile  to  the  alliance  of  logic  and  psy¬ 
chology  prophesy  the  latter  fate.  It  would  seem  to  be  the  task  of  philoso¬ 
phy  to  gauge  the  danger,  and  to  determine  whether  the  embankment 
can  or  need  be  reinforced,  and  the  stream  kept  to  its  native  bed. 

Obviously  there  are  no  available  definitions  to  afford  leverage  in 
establishing  the  respective  confines  of  logic  and  psychology,  since 
psychology  threatens  to  absorb  all  of  philosophy,  and  the  limits  of  logic 
are  equally  indeterminate.  The  difficulty  is  the  greater  because  the 
terms  in  which  the  definitions  may  be  expressed  are  themselves  infected 
with  the  ambiguity  due  to  the  shifting  of  old  landmarks.  From  many 
quarters  the  complaint  concerning  the  confusion  in  our  present  philo¬ 
sophical  terminology  continues  to  gain  in  force,  until  we  are  reminded 
of  Bishop  Berkeley’s  quaint  arraignment  of  language  as  the  source 
of  all  metaphysical  ills  whatsoever.  The  ^‘embarass  and  delusion”  of 
words  is  still  held  largely  responsible  for  the  “  self -raised  ”  dust  which 
obscures  the  philosopher’s  vision.  ‘Consciousness,’  ‘feeling,’  ‘object,’ 
‘subject,’  the  ‘real,’  ‘perception,’  ‘image,’  ‘sensation,’  the '  ‘ personal 
pronouns,’  are  a  few  of  the  items  we  have  been  asked  to  discontinue 
from  our  philosophical  stock-in-trade  pending  a  thorough  investigation 
of  their  exact  meaning.  However,  if  we  could  banish  all  of  these  terms 
to  the  “limbo  of  unregenerate  concepts”  and  substitute  for  each,  as 
Titchener  advised  for  ‘sensation,’  a  “round  dozen  of  concrete  and  de¬ 
scriptive”  terms,  the  philosophical  page  might  appear  much  simplified, 
but  it  is  doubtful  if  the  embarass  and  delusion  would  be  much  abated. 
The  difficulty,  needless  to  say,  is  not  one  of  terminology,  primarily, 
though  such  appears  to  be  the  general  attitude  toward  the  problem, 
judging  by  the  continual  plea  for  a  uniform  vocabulary.  A  commonly 
accepted  philosophical  terminology,  unless  truly  indicative  of  a  uniform 
philosophical  standpoint,  would,  at  the  first  attempt  at  application, 
shatter  into  a  thousand  implications  of  real  difference.  Straightway 
the  words  which  describe  the  situation  concretely  for  one  system  become 
abstract  and  obscure  for  another  and  vice  versa.  As  Stevenson  puts 
it:  “The  longest  and  most  abstruse  flight  of  a  philosopher  becomes 
clear  and  shallow  in  the  flash  of  a  moment,  when  we  suddenly  perceive 
the  aspect  and  drift  of  his  intention.  The  longest  argument  is  but  a 
finger  pointed;  and  once  wx  get  our  own  finger  rightly  parallel,  we  see 
what  the  man  meant,  whether  it  be  a  new  star  or  an  old  street  lamp.” 


THE  PROBLEM 


15 


A  term,  that  is,  cannot  be  defined  without  definite  orientation 
within  a  context,  and  the  uncertainty  in  the  present  usage  of  terms 
is  a  reciprocal  phenomenon  of  the  changing  of  the  contours  of  the 
philosophical  disciplines.  Old  definitions  were  acceptable  while  the 
old  lines  of  cleavage  remained,  but  now  they  are  often  useless.  For 
the  purpose  of  differentiating  psychology  from  the  physical  sciences 
the  definition  of  it  as  ‘the  science  of  the  states  and  processes  of  con¬ 
sciousness  ’  may  be  of  service,  but  so  wide  is  the  interpretation  now  given 
to  ‘  consciousness  ’  that  this  definition  affords  no  differentia  with  respect 
to  other  philosophical  branches.  Indeed,  the  functional  psychologist 
aims  at  making  his  study  of  the  ‘  structure  and  function  of  consciousness  ’ 
nothing  less  than  a  science  of  ‘concrete  experience.’  Yet  no  definition 
could  describe  more  fittingly  the  task  of  all  philosophy  today.  For 
philosophy  is  avowedly  on  the  alert  not  to  state  life  in  terms  of  abstract 
and  general  formulae,  but  to  feel  the  pulse  of  concrete  living.  But  how 
various  the  interpretation  of  the  term  ‘  concrete  ’ !  It  ranges  in  conno¬ 
tation  from  the  content  of  the  specious  present  of  ‘pure  experience,’  in 
which  is  to  be  found  the  full-tide  of  reality  in  all  the  “warmth  and  in¬ 
timacy”  of  its  immediacy,  to  the  timeless  content  of  an  absolute  reality, 
which,  packed  with  the  “terrific  totals” — to  use  a  phrase  of  Henry  James 
— of  all  finite  partialities,  and  the  reconciliations  of  all  finite  conflicts, 
may  alone  be  deemed  adequate  to  represent,  in  its  perfect  fulness  and 
unbroken  homogeneity,  complete  concreteness. 

The  attempt  will  not  be  made,  then,  to  proceed  from  even  provisional 
definition,  to  discover  a  clue  to  the  nature  of  the  relationship  of  logic 
to  psychology.  Rather,  such  definition  can  have  meaning  only  as  the 
nature  of  the  relationship  is  understood.  The  method  which  suggests 
itself  as  feasible  is  that  of  following  psychology  through  some  of  its 
representative  aspects  to  the  point  where  it  seems  to  coincide  with  the 
logic  which  is  centered  in  the  judgment,  defined  as  the  reference  of  an 
ideal  content  to  reality.  In  this  way  the  specific  nature  of  the  claim 
which  psychology  makes  will  be  evident.  The  claim  that  the  two  are 
identical  may  then  be  tested  by  examining  the  psychologist’s  account 
of  the  idea  and  the  judgment,  to  ascertain  whether  it  yields  the  same 
consequences  as  does  that  of  the  logician.  If  the  consequences  are 
different,  such  difference  will  be  considered  a  proof  of  their  non¬ 
coincidence.  The  character  of  this  difference  may  then  be  determined 
more  positively,  and  finally,  an  interpretation  given,  in  the  light  of  this 
differentia,  of  some  of  the  typical  statements  in  regard  to  the  inter¬ 
relation  of  logic  to  psychology. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  PREMISES  OF  PSYCHOLOGY 

From  the  earlier  to  the  later  associationism,  through  the  various 
forms  of  attention  psychology,  to  functional  psychology,  there  has  been 
a  progressive  revision  of  psychological  Tact,’  in  the  direction  of  meeting 
the  demands  of  philosophy  for  an  account  of  thought,  which  should 
make  for  the  possibility  of  real  and  valid  knowledge.  There  have 
been  periods,  to  be  sure,  such  as  that  from  Locke  to  Hume,  in  which  a 
considerable  body  of  information  concerning  ‘what  passes  in  a  man’s 
understanding  when  he  thinks’  has  been  amassed  concomitantly  with 
an  increasing  skepticism  as  to  the  efficacy  of  thought  in  securing  knowl¬ 
edge;  but  this  is  precisely  the  situation  which  had  led  psychology, 
finally,  to  modify  its  introspective  findings.  It  is  noteworthy  that 
psychology  attributes  these  changes,  not  to  any  genuine  shift  in  the 
angle  of  observation,  but  to  greater  subtlety  and  accuracy  of  intro¬ 
spection.  But  observation  is  notoriously  under  the  guidance  of  hypothe¬ 
sis,  and  it  is  peculiarly  difficult  in  this  case  to  determine  how  much  is 
relatively  bare  fact,  open  to  direct  introspective  detection,  and  how 
much  is  theory  “concreted”  into  fact.  It  is  possible  that  psychology, 
its  apperception  mass  enriched  by  the  heritage  of  epistemological 
criticism,  has  read  back,  as  traits  native  to  the  ‘stream  of  consciousness,’ 
characteristics  which  could  be  discovered  by  studying  thought  in  its 
logical  and  epistemological  environment  only;  so  that  it  is  now  equipped 
with  a  descriptive  and  explanatory  account  of  the  states  and  processes 
of  consciousness,  adequate  in  so  many  ways  to  meet  the  needs  of  a 
judgment  process  which  insures  real  knowledge,  that  its  claim  to  issue 
in  logic  becomes  readily  comprehensible  and  easily  accredited. 

The  usual  verdict  that  Locke’s  psychology  is  sound  and  his  logic 
at  fault  has  been  challenged  by  Dewey,  who  interprets  this  as  a  rever¬ 
sal  of  the  facts. ^  His  interpretation  is,  in  substance,  based  upon  the 
disparity  between  Locke’s  success  in  contriving  the  furnishings  of  the 
inner  cabinet,  and  his  failure,  logically  consistent,  to  find  any  way  to 
use  them  in  the  world  of  real  knowledge.  The  implication  is  that  his 
psychological  facts  are  wrong,  and  the  cabinet  must  be  refurnished 
with  a  more  portable  outfit.  It  is  an  old  story  that  Locke  finds  the 

^  Dewey,  unpublished  lectures. 

i6 


PREMISES  OF  PSYCHOLOGY 


17 


materials  of  knowledge  given  in  the  simple,  discrete  units  or  ideas, 
which  as  such  may  not  be  called  true  or  false;  that  thinking  or  judging 
is  the  conjoining  of  them,  and  that  knowledge  is  the  perception  of  the 
various  kinds  of  agreement  or  disagreement  among  these  ideas.  How¬ 
ever,  Locke  finally  concludes  that  such  knowledge  is  empty  of  real 
content;  that  thought  in  connecting  ideas  produces  merely  analytical, 
or  trifling  and  verbal  knowledge.  The  second  definition  of  knowledge, 
implicit  in  the  Tourth  kind  of  agreement,’  namely,  the  agreement  of 
the  idea  with  reality,  is  an  admission  that  the  idea  must  be  brought  into 
connection  with  something  outside  of  itself.^  But  the  only  place  where 
this  occurs  is  in  sense-perception,  and  here  Locke  finds  no  function  for 
thought  to  perform,  since  the  only  connecting  involved  is  that  of  the 
qualities  in  the  object,  and  these  already  “coexist  in  nature.”  We  can 
say  at  the  moment  of  sense-perception,  and  with  conviction  of  real 
knowledge,  “This  gold  melts,”  but  here  the  connection  is  entirely  given, 
and  not  at  all  the  work  of  thought.  The  only  function  which  thought 
may  be  said  to  perform  is  to  record,  or  duplicate  in  simple  or  complex 
idea  form,  the  reality  completely  present.  However,  when  we  say, 
“All  gold  melts,”  thought  performs  its  office  of  connecting  two  ideas, 
but  gives  assurance  of  nothing  beyond  the  coexistence  of  two  ideas  in 
the  mind.  In  spite  of  the  fact,  then,  that  ideas  are  the  materials  of 
knowledge,  they  do  not,  when  put  together,  yield  knowledge  worthy 
of  the  name.  Nor  has  thought  the  power  to  refashion  or  reconstruct 
the  simple  idea  any  more  than  it  has  power  to  influence  the  ‘constitution, 
order,  or  connection  of  qualities’  in  things.  Thus,  thought,  manipu¬ 
lating  such  ideas  as  introspection  seems  duly  to  deliver  as  the  units,  or 
materials,  of  knowledge,  is  a  self -in closed  process,  operating  futilely 
within  a  realm  sharply  delimited  from  reality. 

Similarly  for  Berkeley,  real  knowledge  occurs  only  at  the  moment 
of  perception;  for  only  at  the  moment  of  experiencing  the  conjunction 
of  the  ‘ideas  of  sense’  can  we  be  sure  of  a  connection  between  them. 
There  is  no  genuine  connection  between  or  among  them;  their  order 
may  be  changed  at  any  time.  Heat  is  not  necessarily  connected  with 
fire,  and  the  judgment  which  joins  subject  and  predicate  on  the  basis  of 
a  necessary  connection  is  misleading.  Fire  and  heat  may  go  together 
as  ideas  of  sense  coexistently  given  in  perception,  but  in  that  case 
thought  takes  no  part.  Nor  can  thought  in  its  function  of  joining  ideas 

^  Cf.  Moore,  The  Functional  versus  the  Representational  Theories  of  Knowledge  in 
Locke's  Essay  (“University  of  Chicago  Contributions  to  Philosophy,”  III,  No.  1), 
pp.  48-52. 


l8  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


of  memory,  or  of  imagination,  reach  knowledge.  Ideas  of  this  sort 
cannot  be  connected  or  synthesized  into  new  logical  or  knowledge- 
wholes;  nor  can  they  be  analyzed,  indeed,  into  constituent  elements, 
since  they  are  already  simple  and  irreducible  givens,  as  irretrievably 
unique  and  separate  in  their  occurrence  as  their  prototypes,  the  ideas 
of  sense.  If  carried  on  through  the  medium  of  the  ^  ideas’  which  Berke¬ 
ley’s  introspection  vouches  for,  thinking  is  an  anomalous,  if  not  super¬ 
fluous,  activity  of  the  inner  spirit. 

With  Hume,  the  thinking-process,  reduced  to  a  series  of  mental 
units,  passing  in  rapid  panoramic  succession,  has  resolved  itself  into 
a  continuously  flowing  stream.  There  is  nothing  to  be  synthesized 
except  ideas,  and  these  flow  on,  although  there  is  no  logical  reason  for 
their  beginning  or  ending.  There  is  the  gentle  force”  by  which  one 
idea  calls  another  after  it,  but  there  is  no  real  connection  between  them, 
that  is,  they  form  among  themselves  no  logical  unity.  The  mind  is  a 
succession  of  disparate  ideas,  and  there  is  nothing  to  mark  the  beginning 
or  end  of  association,  nor  is  there  any  criterion  by  which  to  judge  what 
grouping  or  bundle  of  associations  constitutes  a  judgment.  Hume 
finds  that  no  ‘combination,  collocation  or  succession’  of  ideas  results 
in  a  valid  judgment.  His  substitute  for  judgment,  belief,  demands  the 
joining  of  idea  with  impression.  In  some  way  thought  must  get  away 
from  mere  ideas;  the  continuity  of  the  self-inclosed  process  must  be 
invaded.  Knowledge  constituted  by  the  connection  or  conjunction  of 
ideas,  Hume,  with  Locke,  deems  trivial  or  purely  analytical.  Knowledge 
of  the  “relations  of  matter  of  fact”  is  the  only  knowledge  worth  while, 
but  this  involves  the  joining  of  impression  with  idea.  However,  idea 
may  be  connected  with  impression  only  by  a  “fiction”  of  the  mind. 
Immediate  perception,  finally,  in  which  for  Hume  there  is  no  inference 
or  work  of  thought — it,  and  it  alone,  affords  knowledge.  But  even 
here,  the  object  seemingly  so  completely  present  to  perception  is  itself 
only  a  swift  succession  of  impression  units,  which  the  mind  by  its  make- 
believe  blends  into  a  permanent  and  self-identical  whole.  Knowledge, 
then,  is  confined  to  the  moment  of  sensory  impact,  and  thought,  in 
rescuing  us  from  the  mercy  of  the  passing  moment,  does  so  only  by  a 
falsification  of  reality.  Thinking  as  made  up  of  the  continuous  stream 
of  discrete  ideas,  for  whose  existence,  Locke,  Berkeley,  and  Hume, 
as  psychologists,  found  such  convincing  introspective  evidence,  is  not 
only  futile  but  falsificatory,  since  its  only  genuine  power  is  that  of  a 
make-believe. 

Hume’s  failure  to  square  the  facts  of  mind  which  he  found,  as 


PREMISES  OF  PSYCHOLOGY 


19 


introspective  psychologist,  with  the  work  which  thought  seemed  to 
perform  in  the  world  of  his  backgammon-playing,  common-sense  expe¬ 
rience,  may  be  said  to  have  had  at  least  two  results  historically.  On 
the  one  hand,  this  chasm  between  thought  as  continuity  or  narrative 
by  itself,  and  the  world  of  things,  or  the  continuum  of  external  objects 
formed  a  good  basis  for  the  independent  development  of  psychology. 
Logical  and  epistemological  questions  as  to  the  possibility  and  validity 
of  knowledge,  and  of  the  relation  of  the  thought-process  to  reality, 
could  be  shelved,  and  psychology  could  locate  its  inquiries  strictly 
within  the  boundaries  of  the  continuous  succession  of  mental  states. 
Skepticism  as  to  the  possibility  of  knowledge  might  flourish,  but  man 
could  at  least  know  what  was  passing  in  his  own  understanding.  Intro¬ 
spection  might  be  difficult,  but  given  the  requisite  skill  and  perseverance, 
the  human  mind  must  at  last  yield  to  analysis.  The  long  reign  of  asso- 
ciationism  and  the  present-day  achievement  in  structural  analysis  bear 
witness  to  the  success  of  this  method  of  introspective  isolation. 

The  other  result  of  Hume’s  separation  of  thought  and  reality  led 
to  the  attempt  by  Kant  to  give  an  account  of  thought,  which  the  empiri¬ 
cists  by  their  rigorous  introspection  had  failed  to  find.  Skepticism  had 
been  the  logical  outcome  of  conceiving  the  materials  of  knowledge  as 
completely  given  to  a  thought-process  which  had  no  power  over  them. 
Thus  there  resulted  a  thorough  internalizing  of  the  thought-activity 
and  a  consequent  externalizing,  to  the  point  of  complete  alienation, 
of  reality.  Though  it  is  the  fashion  at  present  to  accord  Kant  small 
historical  influence,  it  seems  undeniable  that  he  stamped  in,  past  the 
possibility  of  efiacement,  a  feeling  for  the  intimate  connection  of  thought 
and  its  object.  Thought,  knowledge,  and  reality  are  three  terms  which, 
since  the  time  of  Kant,  it  is  no  longer  possible  to  consider  separately. 
Despite  the  fact  that  ultimately  he  turned  awry  the  current  of  philosophy 
from  ‘empirical  reality’  into  transcendental  channels,  where  thought 
became  transfigured  into  Pure  Reason,  his  insistence  that  thought  organ¬ 
ized  its  materials  into  the  very  world  of  reality,  which  for  the  empiricists 
was  so  completely  given  and  external,  and  which  thought,  in  its  passive 
internality,  faced  so  f utilely,  could  not  but  change  the  mode  of  conceiving 
the  mental  processes. 

The  later  English  associationists  as  well  as  the  German  psychologists 
show  this  influence.  Some  feeling  for  a  genuine  thought-activity  is 
evinced,  in  that  there  is  an  attempt  to  ascribe  to  thought  some  construct¬ 
ive  power  over  its  material.  The  category  of  attention  is  coming  to 
the  front.  Attention  makes  the  idea  clearer,  more  distinct,  gives  it 


20  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


greater  duration,  but  these  are  not  the  only  changes  which  it  effects. 
Inasmuch  as  it  holds  the  idea,  that  is,  secures  greater  duration  for  it, 
it  establishes  ‘interest,’  and  since  interest  determines  the  direction  and 
number  of  associations,  attention  becomes  responsible  for,  and  thus 
has  control  over,  the  train  of  ideas  which  follow.*  Further,  the  cognitive 
unit  seems  to  be  no  longer  the  ideas  of  ‘  simple  and  uniform  appearance’ 
of  the  Lockean  type,  deriving  its  simplicity  and  uniformity  from  its 
objective  prototype.  The  unity  of  mental  content  appears,  rather,  to 
be  determined  by  the  ‘span’  of  attention.  The  growing  emphasis  upon 
the  problem  concerning  the  number  of  objects  to  which  the  mind  can 
attend  at  one  time  is  significant  of  a  marked  change  in  the  conception  of 
thought.  It  is  a  step  in  the  direction  of  regarding  any  moment  of  con¬ 
sciousness  as  unitary,  whatever  its  content,  rather  than  as  made  up  of 
units,  synchronously  or  successively  combined,  and  further,  of  according 
to  thought  power  over  its  material.  For  though  the  later  English  asso- 
ciationists  continue  to  explain  an  object  as  a  complex  of  ideas,  due  to 
inseparably  associated  impressions,  yet  the  original  unification  of  the 
impressions  into  the  object  is  made  to  depend  upon  the  capacity  of 
attention  to  select,  and  organize,  and  hold  within  its  span,  a  certain 
number  of  impressions.  In  other  words,  thought  is  brought  into  closer 
connection  with  reality  through  its  power  of  selective  control. 

The  apparently  simple  admission  of  the  selective  aspect  of  the  mind 
continues  for  some  time  to  be  a  source  of  difficulty  to  a  psychology 
which,  as  a  lineal  descendant  from  the  psychology  of  Locke  and  Hume, 
is  fearful  of  making  the  mind  an  entity  over  and  above  its  ideas,  and 
of  ascribing  to  it  occult  faculties  which  elude  introspective  verification.  - 
Early  attempts  to  do  justice  to  the  attention  phenomena  led  in  psy¬ 
chological  practice  to  a  dualism  between  mind  and  idea.  Attention 
was  treated  as  a  sort  of  process  outside  the  content  of  the  idea,  and 
as  such,  was  apt  to  recede  upon  close  scrutiny  into  the  sheltering  folds 
of  ‘mind,’  leaving  the  idea  with  its  traditional  passivity.  Yet  the 
psychology  which  equated  mind  with  ideas  could  no  longer  regard 
the  idea  as  merely  the  passive  recipient  of  its  content,  however  intro¬ 
spection  might  be  baffled  to  discover  manifestations  of  activity  within 
it.  The  bipartite-tripartite  controversy  as  to  the  existence  of  activity 
as  a  distinguishable  element  of  consciousness  followed  in  the  wake  of 
the  emphasis  on  the  attention  category;  for  attention  as  voluntary 
control  was  generally  regarded  as  the  activity  aspect  of  consciousness. 
Both  bipartitists  and  tripartitists  were  ‘structuralists’  in  that  they 

*  James  Mill,  Analysis  of  the  Human  Mind,  II,  367-70. 


PREMISES  OF  PSYCHOLOGY 


21 


agreed  that  activity  must  reveal  itself  as  an  element  within,  and  not  a 
somewhat,  mysteriously  outside  of,  the  mental  content  under  examina¬ 
tion.  The  persistence  of  the  activity  quarrel  was  evidence  of  the 
genuineness  of  the  difficulty  of  discovering  such  an  element  by  intro¬ 
spection.  The  challenge  of  the  bipartitist  to  find  activity  as  a  distinctive 
element  in  consciousness  was  met  by  the  countercharge  of  the  tripartitist 
that  his  adversary  was  guilty  of  the  psychologist’s  fallacy.  The  bipar¬ 
titist,  that  is,  assumed  that  the  bit  of  consciousness  under  examination 
represented  a  complete  moment  of  consciousness,  when  it  ought  to  have 
been  evident  that  the  original  activity  had,  at  the  moment  of  introspec¬ 
tion,  shifted  its  center  of  gravity  to  the  psychologist  as  spectator. 

The  bipartitist,  as  rigorous  introspectionist,  especially  as  he  leaned 
toward  the  interpretation  of  psychology  as  a  science  and  relegated  the 
problem  of  activity  to  metaphysics,  seemed  to  hold  the  fort.  However, 
even  he  found  it  necessary  to  qualify  his  position  and  make  concessions. 
He  began  to  find  it  convenient  to  talk  in  terms  of  process  as  well  as  of 
content.  The  fact  that  the  idea  changed  and  shifted  under  the  survey 
of  the  introspectionist  was  finally  accepted  as  evidence  of  its  dynamic, 
or  active,  or,  according  to  the  earlier  usage  of  the  term,  its  functional 
character.  The  dynamic  character  of  the  idea,  then,  was  its  capacity 
to  change  within  itself,  to  wax  and  wane  as  idea,  and  to  flow  insensibly 
into  the  passing  stream.  With  this  compromise,  thought  could  be 
designated  as  active,  and  its  activity  could  be  regarded  as  a  structural 
attribute  of  the  idea.  But  the  tripartitist  was  not  content  with  this 
disposition  of  the  matter,  for  he  insisted  that  activity  meant  something 
more  than  the  mere  structural  instability  of  the  idea. 

It  is  only  with  the  introduction  of  another  conception  that  the  quarrel 
between  the  bipartitist  and  tripartitist  bids  fair  to  become  adjusted  and 
that  is  with  the  characterization  of  thought  as  motor.  The  presence  of 
the  idea  is  attention,  but,  further,  if  the  idea  holds  the  field,  it  issues 
into  action.  The  idea  is  active,  then,  but  its  activity  is  no  longer  that 
of  bringing  in  its  train  a  troop  of  associates,  nor  yet  is  it  dynamic  merely 
in  the  sense  allowed  by  the  orthodox  structuralists  of  a  ‘process’  of 
inner  change.  Idea  is  motor  in  tendency;  it  leads  to  overt  activity. 
The  idea  with  its  motor  tendency,  finally,  is  regarded  as  the  cognitive 
unit,  and  the  activity  is  no  longer  a  mysterious  tertiuni  quid  of  con¬ 
sciousness,  but  finds  representation  within  the  idea  itself. 

The  advance  from  the  characterization  of  the  idea  as  passive,  (i)  to 
the  description  of  it  as  dynamic,  with  control  over  its  own  sequences, 
and  (2)  to  the  conception  of  it  as  a  selective,  adaptive  process,  which, 


22 


RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


no  longer  shut  up  to  internality,  issues  in  overt  activity,  is  of  far-reaching 
consequence  not  only  to  psychology  but  to  philosophy.  The  idea,  so 
conceived,  is  pointing  out  of  the  realm  of  merely  mental  states  to  a 
world  beyond;  it  gives  promise  of  being  an  adequate  tool  for  securing 
knowledge,  valid  and  real — a  combination  which  the  idea  of  the  asso- 
ciationist  could  never  achieve.  Further,  this  tendency  to  activity  is 
not  at  random*  or  uncontrolled;  it  is  not  a  process  supervening,  like  an 
arbitrary  fiat,  upon  the  idea,  but  the  specific  nature  and  direction  of  its 
activity  is  precisely  an  intrinsic  attribute  of  the  idea  itself.  Closely 
connected,  that  is,  with  the  conception  of  thought  as  motor  is  that  of  the 
specifically  purposive  and  adaptive  nature  of  this  activity,  first  in  the 
more  palpable  biological  sense  of  adapting  organism  to  environment, 
and  then  in  the  more  subtle  sense  of  overcoming  any  obstacle  to  direct 
and  unimpeded  procedure.  Thus,  thought  occurs  when  an  activity, 
previously  operative  through  the  mechanism  of  habit  or  instinct,  is 
for  some  reason  inhibited.  Its  function  is  to  effect  such  an  adjustment 
that  activity  may  again  be  resumed.  In  other  words,  thought  is  ‘Teleo¬ 
logical” — headed  toward  an  end  other  than  itself. 

It  is  at  this  point  in  its  history  that  psychology  claims  to  be  one 
with  the  logic  which  finds  in  any  felt  inadequacy  of  experience  the 
occasion  for  the  occurrrence  of  thought,  and  which  delegates  to  thought 
the  function  of  so  resolving  the  doubt  or  ‘tension’  into  which  a  situa¬ 
tion  has  fallen  that  through  its  instrumentality  experience  is  recon¬ 
structed  and  redintegrated  on  a  new  level.  This  type  of  logic,  moreover, 
views  thought  as  occupied,  not  with  a  reality  which  lies  behind  a 
perpetually  retreating  horizon  line,  where  it  merely  appears  to  meet 
experience,  but  with  a  reality  accessible  to,  and  located  within,  the 
practical  act  of  judgment,  and  as  concerned  with  a  criterion  of  truth 
established  within  the  limits  of  such  reality.  But  this  interpretation 
of  the  nature  of  truth  and  the  function  of  thought,  the  psychologist 
maintains,  makes  the  problem  of  logic  coincident  with  that  of  psy¬ 
chology.  Angell  says: 

Unless  one  regards  the  cognitive  function  as  a  mere  luxury  of  the  organism, 
it  is  difficult  to  see  how  one  can  escape  from  the  view  just  presented.  If  the 
knowledge  processes  are  of  value  to  the  organism,  it  obviously  must  be  because 
of  what  they  do.  No  one  questions  that  they  serve  to  reflect  and  mediate 
the  external  world,  and  this  they  can  only  do  effectively  provided  they  dis¬ 
tinguish  the  true  from  the  false.  It  would  seem  fairly  clear,  therefore,  that  a 
functional  psychology  in  any  event,  however  the  case  may  stand  with  a  struc¬ 
tural  psychology,  cannot  possibly  avoid  a  consideration  of  this  aspect  of  the 


PREMISES  OF  PSYCHOLOGY 


23 


cognitive  activities.  But  the  problem  to  which  this  view  leads  is  essentially 
identical  with  the  accepted  problem  of  logic.^ 

Psychology,  indeed,  would  seem  to  have  the  right  of  way,  for  it  is 
now  equipped  with  a  cognitive  unit  which  can  be  stated  satisfactorily 
as  content  or  structure,  belonging  to  the  inner  continuum,  or  as  activity, 
which  goes  forth  into  the  world  of  practice  and  effects  adjustments 
therein.  Thus  provided,  psychology  can  without  apparent  break  in 
the  continuity  of  its  development,  or  essential  change  in  viewpoint, 
become  one  with  logic. 

The  question,  obviously,  is  whether  the  psychologist  can  discuss 
thought  as  it  goes  about  its  business  with  reality.  Can  this  be  done 
from  the  standpoint  traditionally  distinctive  of  the  psychologist,  that 
of  viewing  thought  as  “reflecting  and  mediating  an  external  world,” 
to  which  adjustment  is  to  be  made?  If  psychology  essays  to  discuss, 
under  the  caption  of  “right  adjustment,”  the  situation  in  which  thought 
connects  with  reality  at  first  hand,  several  problems  confront  it  which 
heretofore  it  has  been  content  to  regard  as  out  of  its  province.  It  has 
deemed  it  sufficient  to  trace  the  career  of  the  idea  to  the  point  where 
it  dominates  in  consciousness.  Frankly  adopting  as  a  working  hypothe¬ 
sis  the  standpoint  of  the  dualism  of  thought  and  thing,  its  interpreta¬ 
tion  of  thought  remained  within  those  limits.  James  says  of  the 
psychologist’s  attitude:  “The  dualism  of  Subject  and  Object  and  their 
pre-established  harmony  are  what  the  psychologist  as  such  must  assume, 
whatever  ulterior  monistic  philosophy  he  may,  as  an  individual  who  has 
the  right  also  to  be  a  metaphysician,  have  in  reserve.”^ 

The  psychologist’s  assumption  with  regard  to  cognition  James 
states,  further,  is  a  thoroughgoing  dualism. 

It  supposes  two  elements,  mind  knowing  and  thing  known,  and  treats 
them  as  irreducible.  Neither  gets  out  of  itself,  or  into  the  other,  neither  in 
any  way  is  the  other,  neither  makes  the  other.  They  just  stand  face  to  face 
in  a  common  world,  and  one  simply  knows,  or  is  known  unto  its  counterpart. 
This  singular  relation  is  not  to  be  expressed  in  any  lower  terms,  or  translated 
into  any  more  intelligible  name  ....  the  knowledge  is  constituted  by  a  new 
construction  that  occurs  altogether  in  the  mind.  The  thing  remains  the  same 
whether  known  or  not.^ 

If  psychology  is  really  to  assume  the  task  of  logic,  it  can  no  longer 

^  “The  Relations  of  Structural  and  Functional  Psychology  to  Philosophy,” 
University  of  Chicago  Decennial  Publications,  First  Series,  Vol.  Ill,  Part  II,  p.  13  (page 
reference  is  to  monograph  reprint). 

“  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  220.  ^  Jhid.,  pp.  218-19. 


24  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


leave  the  idea  standing  on  the  brink  of  such  a  precipice ;  it  must  bridge 
this  chasm  to  reality.  It  is  at  the  point  at  which  reality  and  idea  are 
alleged  to  stand  face  to  face  in  a  common  world,  that  the  logical  prob¬ 
lem  becomes  crucial.  It  will  not  suffice  for  logic  to  take  for  granted 
that  the  new  construction  which  “occurs  altogether  in  the  mind”  holds 
of  reality,  or  to  show  thought  as  a  Lady  of  Shalott’s  mirror  in  which 
external  reality  is  so  reflected  by  some  pre-established  harmony  that 
it  leads  to  right  adjustment.  A  logic  which  professes  as  its  creed  a 
belief  in  the  possibility  of  knowledge  must  meet  the  challenge  to  show 
how  the  idea  as  predicate  can  come  into  relationship  with  reality,  in 
such  a  manner  that  the  result  is  not  a  merely  mental  reconstruction, 
or  one  which  leads  to  a  new  adaptation  to  reality,  but  is,  rather,  a  recon¬ 
stitution  of  reality  itself. 

To  meet  such  a  demand  psychology  must  make  a  radical  revision 
of  its  dualistic  premise  and  so  far  forth  adopt  different  data.  The 
history  of  philosophy  shows  the  folly  and  fallacy  of  attempting,  through 
any  subsequent  compromise,  to  establish  the  relation  between  things 
which  by  the  very  definitions  adopted  at  the  outset  preclude  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  any  connection.  And  the  psychologist  who  bases  the  possi¬ 
bility  of  his  science  on  the  assumption  of  the  differentiation  of  thought 
and  things  separates  them  as  irretrievably  as  did  the  Cartesians  and 
Occasionalists  by  explicit  definition.  Psychology  cannot  take  the  idea, 
characterized  and  interpreted  from  the  standpoint  of  an  initial  dualism, 
and  proceed  to  establish  its  relation  to  reality  in  a  manner  satisfactory 
to  instrumental  logic.  Yet  were  psychology  to  attempt  to  reduce 
thought  and  things  to  a  common  denominator  it  would  lay  itself  open 
to  the  charge  of  wantonly  interchanging  the  categories  of  thought  and 
being,  or  it  would  be  obliged  so  to  reinterpret  its  fundamental  categories 
as  to  imperil  its  identity  with  any  recognized  form  of  psychological  dis¬ 
cipline. 

Functional  psychology  characterized  thought  as  motor  and  adaptive. 
Inevitably  another  characteristic  arises  which  must  give  some  pause  to 
the  psychologist.  Thought  is  occasional;  continual,  not  continuous. 
When  thought’s  work  is  done,  and  the  specific  need  for  which  it  is  called 
out  is  fulfilled,  it  disappears.  If  the  psychologist  accepts  this  aspect 
of  thought  as  a  corollary  of  the  motor-teleological  characterization,  he 
must  revise  his  description  of  thought  as  a  stream.  Must  he  not,  indeed, 
change  his  view  of  thought  as  subjective  continuity  ?  It  is,  to  be  sure, 
a  seven-league  stride  from  the  associationists’  account  of  thought  as  a 
stream  of  mechanically  determined  sequences  of  mental  events,  to  the 


PREMISES  OF  PSYCHOLOGY 


25 


conception  of  thought  as  a  purposive  and  genuinely  developmental 
continuity,  of  which  Angell  gives  so  forceful  a  description. 

“Each  idea  springs  out  of  other  ideas,  which  have  gone  before,  and 
in  turn  gives  birth  to  new  successors.  The  connection  is  not  merely 
one  of  sequence  in  time;  it  is  a  connection  of  the  genuinely  develop¬ 
mental  type,  in  which  one  idea  is,  as  it  were,  unfolded  from,  and  given 
off  by,  another.”^ 

Yet,  in  spite  of  the  difference  between  these  two  positions,  there  is 
a  fundamental  similarity,  which  is  doubtless  a  distinguishing  mark  of 
the  psychological  standpoint.  In  both  cases  thought  is  a  continuous 
realm  in  itself.  It  is  a  process  having  its  own  law  of  ebb  and  flow,  and 
one  which  never  leaves  the  level  of  its  own  continuity  to  invade  a  reality 
outside  of  it.  This  has  been  shown  to  be  true  of  associationism,  but  it 
is  none  the  less  apposite  to  the  more  modern  conception.  For  the  inter¬ 
pretation  of  thought  as  developmental  in  this  sense,  whereby  one  idea 
grows  out  of,  and  into,  another,  is  a  sort  of  Weissmanian  germ-plasm 
theory  of  thought.  The  idea,  so  to  speak,  cannot  acquire  reality  charac¬ 
teristics  from  its  environment,  nor  can  it  transmit  such  characteristics 
if  acquired — development  is  entirely  from  within.  There  is  no  intention 
here  of  urging  anything  in  criticism  of  this  view.  It  is  doubtless  a 
consistent  and  legitimate  reading  of  the  facts  from  the  introspective 
vantage-point  as  determined  by  the  psychologist’s  premises.  But  idea, 
as  offspring  of  this  continuity-of-thought  plasm,  is  unfitted  by  its  in¬ 
heritance,  for  the  service  into  which  logic  would  press  it.  The  charac¬ 
teristics  with  which  logic  invests  the  idea  betray  a  different  lineage  from 
that  accorded  to  it  by  the  psychologist. 

The  conception  of  thought  as  a  continuity  of  mental  states  or  pro¬ 
cesses,  inestimably  productive  of  explanatory  and  descriptive  results  as  it 
has  been,  and  authentic  as  it  may  be  from  the  retro-introspective  stand¬ 
point,  must  be  abandoned  as  inadequate  to  explain  the  function  of 
thought  as  instrumental  logic  would  portray  it.  In  the  interest  of  a 
logic  which  ascribes  to  thought,  not  the  function  of  copying,  or  reflecting, 
or  representing  an  external  reality,  but  that  of  penetrating,  manipulating, 
and  refashioning  reality  so  that  thought  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  “charac¬ 
teristic  medium  of  the  activity”^  of  reality  itself,  the  existence  of  thought 
as  inner  or  subjective  continuity  must  be  denied.  Thought  appears 
to  be  one  aspect  of  a  larger  experience,  which  only  on  occasion  reduces 
to  a  thought  experience.  Dewey  says:  “Taking  some  part  of  the 

*  Psychology y  chap,  x,  p.  265. 

^  Dewey,  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  p.  43,  footnote. 


26  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


universe  of  action,  of  affection,  of  social  construction,  under  its  special 
charge,  and  having  busied  itself  therewith  sufficiently  to  meet  the  special 
difficulty  presented,  thought  releases  that  topic  and  enters  upon  further 
more  direct  experienced’^ 

Nor  is  the  subjective  continuity  of  consciousness  to  be  kept  inviolate 
by  translating  ‘‘more  direct  experience”  into  terms  of  feeling  or  emotion, 
so  that  the  gaps  between  ‘  thoughts  ’  may  be  filled  up.  The  psychologist, 
however,  reading  off  all  experience  in  terms  of  personal  consciousness, 
must  make  just  this  translation  or  be  accused  of  talking  nonsense.  The 
interpretation  of  thought  (or  consciousness,  since  all  consciousness  as 
adaptive  is  so  far  forth  cognitive)  as  forming  one  beat  in  the  rhythm  of 
experience,  whether  or  not  it  be  the  accented  one  in  which  all  others 
get  representation,  offers  difficulties  to  the  psychologist,  and  especially 
to  one  who  retains  the  conception  of  thought  as  inner  continuity. 

Physiological  psychology  comes  to  his  aid  to  some  extent  in  making 
the  conception  of  thought  as  ‘  occasional  ’  a  possible  one  for  psychology 
consistently  to  hold.  The  challenge  to  tell  where  an  idea  was  when  it 
was  no  longer  ‘in  the  understanding’  could  not  be  met  by  earlier  psy¬ 
chology.  Physiological  psychology  has  made  possible  an  explanation  by 
giving  the  idea  cortical  representation,  so  that  the  cells,  functionally 
active  in  the  presence  of  the  idea,  conserve  the  idea  when  absent,  by 
way  of  organic  habit,  and  thus  make  possible  its  revival.  But  this 
hypothesis,  beyond  explaining  the  physiological  and  neural  conditions  of 
the  phenomena  of  consciousness,  does  not  meet  the  situation  which  the 
psychologist  is  forced  to  face  if  he  undertakes  the  logical  problem.  For 
the  psychologist  who  ventures  to  discuss  thought  as  something  more  than 
a  concomitant  of  physiological  and  neural  conditions,  at  any  rate,  for 
one  who  attempts  to  deal  with  consciousness  in  its  capacity  to  connect 
with  ‘things’  and  effect  differences  in' them,  the  fact  that  thought  is 
one  aspect  of  experience,  and  not  coincident  with  it,  is  an  awkward 
affair  to  handle.  To  tell  what  becomes  of  thought  as  adaptive  con¬ 
sciousness  when  it  has  ceased  to  operate  and  to  discuss  “direct  expe¬ 
rience”  in  terms  other  than  that  of  personal  habit  or  consciousness 
would  seem  to  drive  psychology  to  a  study  of  thought,  not  from  the  point 
of  view  of  finding  its  origin,  and  principle  of  conservation,  within  an 
individual’  ^psycho-physical  organism,’  hut  rather  as  arising  from,  and 
transforming  into,  reality  itself. 

Further  to  satisfy  the  demand  of  logic,  psychology  must  show  not 
only  that  thought  thus  connects  with  things,  that  is,  that  it  has  objective 

^  Dewey,  op.  cit.,  p.  2  (italics  mine). 


PREMISES  OF  PSYCHOLOGY 


27 


validity,  but  also  that  the  ‘right  adjustment,’  which  thought  brings 
about,  is  universally  right.  In  other  words,  if  truth  is  to  be  identified 
with  successful  adjustment,  it  must  have  a  validity  beyond  the  individual. 
But  logic  can  make  out  no  case  for  the  extra-individual  validity  of  the 
truth  which  thought  achieves,  no  matter  how  social  the  content  of  that 
thought  may  be,  if  in  the  first  place  thought  is  characterized  as  always 
personal — ‘your’  thought  and  ‘my’  thought.  Such  adjustments  as 
it  effects  must  always  be  in  the  field  of  ‘personal’  behavior  or  habit 
toward  reality,  and  such  reconstructions  as  it  accomplishes  must  occur 
wholly  in  ‘my’  mind.  Yet  the  conception  of  thought  as  personal  is 
certainly  a  basal  assumption  of  psychology,  and  to  discard  it  would  be 
to  require  such  a  revision  of  the  limits  and  boundaries  of  the  “individual  ” 
as  to  make  it  no  longer  identifiable  with  the  field  of  investigation  which 
psychology  has  heretofore  pre-empted. 

Whatever  psychology  decides  as  to  the  possibility  or  the  advisability 
of  re-editing  its  categories  to  meet  these  demands,  it  seems  fairly  evident 
that  there  are  different  standpoints  involved  in  the  conception  of  thought 
as  continuous  stream  with  substantive  and  transitive  states,  and  thought 
as  occasional  in  occurrence;  in  thought  as  ‘personal,’  the  possession 
of  the  individual  as  such,  and  thought  as  the  ‘medium  of  the  activity 
of  reality.’ 

If  psychology  can  give  an  account  of  the  judgment  process  which 
possesses  all  the  perquisites  which  logic  finds  necessary  in  order  to  make 
out  a  case  for  the  possibility  of  knowledge,  then  logic  and  psychology 
are  one,  and  the  name  is  a  matter  of  indifference.  But  if  the  ‘idea,’ 
as  psychology  describes  it,  cannot  be  put  to  work  in  the  judgment 
because  the  consequences  would  be  fatal  to  a  logic  which  attempts  to 
show  thought  as  instrumental  in  securing  truth  that  is  not  lacking  in 
objectivity,  permanence,  and  universality,  then  the  problems  of  logic 
and  psychology  are  not  identical. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  IDEA  IN  PSYCHOLOGY 

If  psychology  and  logic  are  identical,  psychology  must  make  out 
such  a  passport  for  the  ‘idea’  that  it  may  travel  without  obstruction 
into,  and  out  of,  the  country  of  reality.  The  idea  as  predicate  must 
so  connect  with  reality  as  subject  that  the  judgment,  in  achieving  new 
knowledge,  shall  achieve  new  reality;  for  instrumental  logic  insists 
that  thought  is  not  a  discursive  activity  operating  between  two  realities 
as  limits  and  fetching  up  with  a  newer  approximation  to  reality.  The 
judgment  process  as  an  analytic-synthetic  activity  must  not  be  an 
analysis  of  mere  concepts,  therefore,  nor  a  synthesis  of  mere  thought- 
relations.  But  for  psychology  to  attempt  such  an  exposition  of  the 
judgment  is  to  find  itself  entangled  in  the  antinomies  of  thought  and 
being,  with  the  reduction  of  the  latter  to  the  former  as  the  inevitable 
outcome.  It  is  because  instrumental  logic  has  been  commonly  supposed 
to  adopt  the  ‘idea’  as  the  psychologist  has  made  it  known,  that  these 
strictures  have  been  made  against  its  metaphysics. 

The  psychologist’s  problem,  then,  of  supplying  a  cognitive  element 
that  shall  stand  as  comember  with  reality  in  the  judgment  is  met  by  the 
differentiation  of  the  idea  into  two  aspects,  image  and  meaning.  The 
distinction  between  the  idea  as  specific  mental  content,  and  as  general 
or  abstract  notion,  is  virtually  as  old  as  the  dispute  between  nominalism 
and  realism,  but  the  inclusion  of  the  two  aspects  within  one  and  the  same 
mental  state  is  a  compromise,  which  is  to  be  credited  to  recent  psy¬ 
chological  development.  Ideas  are  no  longer  classified  out  of  context, 
as  particular  or  general,  abstract  or  concrete,  but  every  idea  is  a  concept, 
which  as  image  is  a  specific  mental  ‘event’  or  ‘existence,’  but  which  as 
‘meaning’  transcends  the  limits  of  that  particularity.  Further,  idea 
as  image  belongs  to  the  traditional  stream  of  inner  happenings;  as 
meaning,  it  looks  beyond  the  boundaries  of  that  subjectivity.  Finally, 
the  idea  as  image  is  a  fleeting,  nonrecurrent  existence,  but  meaning  is 
the  permanent  and  universal  thought-content.  Meaning,  that  is,  may 
be  invoked  by  the  psychologist  to  give  to  the  idea  the  attributes  of 
objectivity,  universality,  and  permanence,  thus  rescuing  it  from  the  sub¬ 
jectivity,  particularity,  and  instability  to  which  it  is  doomed  by  virtue 
of  its  habitat  in  the  inner  stream.  A  consideration  of  the  idea  as  the 
psychologist  differentiates  it  into  image  and  meaning  will  lead  to  the 

28 


THE  IDEA  IN  PSYCHOLOGY 


29 


heart  of  the  problem;  it  will  reveal  the  nature  of  the  relationship  which, 
according  to  psychology,*  the  idea  sustains  toward  reality,  and  will 
afford  a  clue,  consequently,  to  its  value  as  an  instrument  of  knowledge. 

In  spite  of  the  recognition  of  image  and  meaning  as  complementary 
phases  of  the  idea,  psychologists  do  not,  as  yet,  always  use  the  term 
with  rigorous  precision  to  cover  both.  Idea  sometimes  designates  the 
image  alone,  or  ‘meaning’  in  contradistinction  to  image.  Where  the 
two  are  specified,  however,  ‘idea’  signifies  a  mental  state  into  which 
both  enter  as  necessary  elements;  the  idea  “must  include  an  image, 
but  it  must  also  include  whatever  notional  fringe  serves  to  give  the 
image  meaning  and  significance.”^  Another  usage  is  that  which  con¬ 
strues  image  and  meaning,  not  primarily  as  constituent  parts  of  one 
whole,  but  rather  as  different  aspects  which  a  specified  mental  content 
takes  on  according  to  the  standpoint  from  which  it  is  viewed.  Angell 
says:  “Images  and  ideas  do  not  refer  to  two  different  states  of  con¬ 
sciousness,  but  to  one  and  the  same  state,  looked  at  now  from  the  side 
of  sensory  character  and  antecedents,  now  from  the  side  of  meaning.”^ 

However,  this  interpretation  may  safely  be  said  to  be  one  with  that 
which  regards  image  and  meaning  as  mutually  constitutive  of  the  cog¬ 
nitive  moment,  for  Angell  states  further  that  “so  far  as  in  our  descrip¬ 
tions  we  have  in  mind  the  sensuous  content  of  a  thought,  e.g.,  its  visual 
or  auditory  character,  we  use  the  term  image.  So  far  as  we  wish  to 
emphasize  in  addition  to,  or  in  distinction  from,  this  fact  of  sensuous 
constitution  the  purport,  significance,  or  meaning  of  the  image,  we  use 
the  term  idea.”^  The  possession  of  such  a  cognitive  unit,  obviously  rich 
in  implication,  and  flexible  of  application,  is  at  once  a  valuable  resource 
and  a  subtle  danger  to  psychology,  inasmuch  as  it  offers  cover  for 
ambiguities  and  inconsistencies. 

Concerning  the  structural  nature  of  the  image  there  is  fairly  definite 
agreement.  It  is  usually  characterized  as  having  a  content  of  sensory 
quotes,  which  are  the  centrally  aroused  counterparts  of  sensation.  It  is, 
moreover,  the  unique,  the  peculiarly  unsharable,  and  personal  mental 
state  of  the  psychologist’s  individual.  ‘Meaning’  is  used  variously: 
first,  to  designate  the  transitive  moment  in  the  stream  of  thought,  the 
conscious  correlative  of  the  process  of  melting  and  decay  of  one  image 
into  another — the  vague  emotional  awareness  of  the  whence  and  whither 
of  the  thought  movement.  As  James  puts  it: 

*  Baldwin,  Dictionary  of  Philosophy  and  Psychology,  article  “Notion,”  p,  184. 

*  Psychology,  chap,  viii,  p.  201,  3  Hid. 


30  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


The  sense  of  our  meaning  is  an  entirely  peculiar  element  of  the  thought. 
It  is  one  of  those  evanescent  and  ‘transitive’  facts  of  mind  which  introspec¬ 
tion  cannot  turn  round  upon,  and  isolate  and  hold  up  for  examination,  as  an 
entomologist  passes  round  an  insect  on  a  pin.  In  the  (somewhat  clumsy) 
terminology  I  have  used,  it  pertains  to  the  ‘fringe’  of  the  subjective  state, 
and  is  a  ‘feeling  of  tendency,’  whose  neural  counterpart  is  undoubtedly  a 
lot  of  dawning  and  dying  processes  too  faint  and  complex  to  be  traced.^ 

Here  ‘meaning’  is  not  for  the  psychologist  a  cognitive  distinction,  how¬ 
ever  he  may  regard  it  as  the  feeling  or  emotional  matrix  out  of  which 
cognitive  distinctions  may  issue.  As  something  over  and  above  the 
image,  it  yet  has  no  distinct  reference  beyond  the  stream  of  mental 
events.  ‘Meaning,’  in  a  second  use  of  the  term,  signifies  not  merely 
the  transitive,  onward-flowing,  continuum  character  of  thought,  but 
rather  its  motor  aspect,  that  is,  the  readiness  or  tendency  to  response 
for  which  the  image  stands  as  specific  stimulus.  The  psychologist, 
however,  classifies  this  aspect  of  consciousness,  when  he  has  occasion 
to  refer  to  it  specifically,  rather  under  the  category  of  impulse  than 
that  of  cognition.  A  third  use  serves  to  indicate  a  distinctively  cogni¬ 
tive  content  and  function,  namely,  the  capacity  of  the  idea  to  refer 
to  things,  or  to  have  object  import.  Finally,  ‘meaning’  may  denote 
the  completely  organized  conceptual  content  or  product  of  thought’s 
activity. 

The  psychologist  finds  that,  in  order  to  convert  the  idea  into  an 
acceptable  logical  tool,  it  is  hardly  suflicient  to  afiix  to  the  idea  ‘  meaning’ 
in  the  first  sense,  for,  although  the  latter  supplies  thought  with  a  dynamic 
attribute,  it  still  keeps  it  a  “subjective  state.”  For  this  reason,  there 
is  usually  coupled  with  image  ‘meaning’  in  the  sense  last  enumerated. 
‘Meaning’  as  the  non-temporal  content  of  concepts  which  remains 
what  it  is  in  spite  of  the  vagaries  and  idiosyncrasies  of  the  stream  of 
images  that  think  it — here  surely  is  to  be  located  the  saving  element 
of  thought,  which  makes  for  the  possibility  of  universal  and  permanent 
truth.  At  least  so  runs  the  argument  of  absolutistic  logic,  which  severs 
without  compunction  just  these  two  aspects  of  thought,  and  denies, 
moreover,  the  possibility  of  ever  yoking  them  together  in  any  genuine 
logical  relationship.^  Idea  as  psychic  occurrence,  it  relegates  to  psy¬ 
chology  as  an  irreducible  surd,  and  hands  over  to  logic,  as  alone  relevant 
and  essential  to  the  judgment  function,  idea  in  its  ‘meaning’  aspect. 

However,  the  psychologist  who  does  not  agree  to  such  a  division  of 

^  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  472. 

2  Bradley,  Logic,  chap,  i,  especially  pp.  i-io. 


THE  IDEA  IN  PSYCHOLOGY 


31 


labor  must  set  about  to  show  how  these  constituents  of  the  cognitive 
moment  may  come  into  organic  connection  with  each  other.  Whether 
he  sees  fit  to  work  out  the  details  of  the  explanation  or  not,  he  must 
leave  the  way  open  for  the  exhibition  of  the  close  interconnection, 
intrinsic  and  internal,  of  the  peculiarly  individual  with  the  universal 
and  objective  aspect  of  thought.  The  psychologist  would  doubtless 
find  ready  answer  to  such  a  demand  by  pointing  to  his  genetic  account 
of  the  reciprocal  growth  and  contemporaneous  development  of  percept 
and  concept.  Yet,  even  this  does  not  meet  the  crucial  issue.  Both 
percept  and  concept  as  mental  contents,  regarded  as  the  possession  of 
the  individual,  might  still  be  denied  objective  validity.  To  satisfy  the 
demand  which  instrumental  logic  means  to  meet,  namely,  that  thought’s 
activity  must  result  in  objective  values,  psychology  must  be  in  a  posi¬ 
tion  to  show  that  ‘meaning’  as  objective  reference  (cf.  the  third  usage 
enumerated),  whether  universal  or  particular,  and  image,  which  as 
unique  psychical  existence,  is  that  which,  for  the  psychologist,  makes 
thought  essentially  ‘my’  thought,  co-operate  in  the  judgment.  Other¬ 
wise  there  is  danger  of  leaving  the  whole  machinery  of  individual  thinking 
unaccounted  for  in  the  knowledge  content,  and  logic  ends  in  the  cul-de-sac 
of  skepticism — with  the  insoluble  problem  of  how  thinking  as  ‘purely 
and  simply  an  inner  movement  of  our  own  mind’  can  claim  to  issue  in 
knowledge  of  reality  except  by  way  of  a  pre-established  harmony 
between  thought  and  things.  The  image  thus  occupies  a  strategic 
position.  Some  psychologists,  to  be  sure,  have  denied  altogether  the 
necessity  of  imagery  for  thought,  but  this  does  not  affect  the  question 
under  consideration  materially,  for  we  are  concerned  to  find  just  what 
the  function  of  the  image  is,  for  those  psychologists  who  recognize  it  as 
a  necessary  factor  in  the  cognitive  moment.  But  even  if  the  exponents 
of  imageless  thought  had  not  been  effectually  refuted  by  psychologists 
on  their  own  ground,  they  have  what  is  equivalent,  for  our  purposes, 
to  the  psychologist’s  general  view  of  the  image,  e.g.,  a  peculiarly  unshar- 
able  mental  state,  be  it  a  ‘noetic-form’  or  a  motor  ‘attitude’ — the 
machinery  in  which,  and  through  which,  thinking  goes  on.  Among  the 
psychologists  who  insist  on  the  close  connection  between  image  and 
meaning,  we  find  that  to  the  image  is  ascribed  the  lesser  functional 
importance.  Thus  James  says: 

Such  an  alteration  of  my  meaning  has  nothing  to  do  with  any  change  in 
the  image  I  may  have  in  my  mental  eye,  but  solely  with  the  vague  conscious¬ 
ness  that  surrounds  the  image,  of  the  sphere  to  which  it  is  intended  to  apply.^ 

^  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  473. 


32  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


....  When  I  use  the  word  man  in  two  different  sentences,  I  may  have  pre¬ 
cisely  the  same  sound  upon  my  lips  and  the  same  picture  in  my  mental  eye, 
but  I  may  mean,  and  at  the  very  moment  of  uttering  the  word  and  imagining 
the  picture,  know  that  I  mean  two  entirely  different  things  ....  the  image, 
per  se,  the  nucleus,  is  functionally  the  least  important  part  of  thought.^ 

Not  only,  then,  does  James  regard  the  image  as  of  less  importance 
than  meaning,  but  he  seems  to  leave  it  without  intrinsic  connection 
with  meaning.  One  image  may  be  the  bearer  of  two  “  entirely  different  ” 
meanings.  With  the  change  from  one  meaning  to  another,  the  image 
may  remain  identically  the  same.  If  an  image  can  carry  two  meanings 
while  it  remains  the  “same,”  what  is  to  limit  the  number  of  meanings 
it  may  carry  ?  Why  may  not  the  meaning  get  so  far  ahead  of  the  image 
as  to  leave  it  behind  ?  If  one  and  the  same  image  will  do  for  two  entirely 
different  meanings,  why  any  imagery  at  all?  “The  reader  sees,”  says 
James,  “by  this  time  that  it  makes  little  or  no  difference  in  what  sort 
of  mind-stuff,  in  what  quality  of  imagery,  his  thinking  goes  on.”^  The 
image  thus  seems  to  make  no  difference  in  the  thought-content;  it 
has  therefore  no  integral  function  in  the  knowledge  moment.  However, 
though  the  image  seems  to  have  no  function  in  the  change  or  develop¬ 
ment  of  meaning,  it  is  noteworthy  that  meaning  changes  the  image. 
“This  added  consciousness”  James  regards  as  an  “absolutely  positive 
sort  of  feeling,  transforming  what  would  otherwise  be  mere  noise  or 
vision  into  something  understood;  and  determining  the  sequel  of  my 
thinking,  the  later  words  and  images,  in  a  perfectly  definite  way.  ”3 

If  meaning  does  “determine  the  image,”  why  does  not  the  change 
in  meaning  from  man  to  Smith  effect  some  change  in  the  image  ?  And 
what  intrinsic  importance  or  function  can  an  image,  which  does  not 
keep  tally  with  the  developing  meaning,  have  in  the  conclusion  of  the 
thought?  “The  only  images  intrinsically  important,”  we  are  told, 
are  “the  halting-places,  the  substantive  conclusions,  provisional  or 

final,  of  the  thought . The  parts  of  the  stream  that  precede 

these  substantive  conclusions  are  but  the  means  of  the  latter’s  attain¬ 
ment. ”4 

How,  on  this  account,  must  the  concluding  word  or  phrase  be 
translated  into  its  full  sensible-image-value,  under  penalty  of  being 
unrealized  and  pale?  James  says  of  this  concluding  image:  “It  need 
only  be  added  that  as  the  Algebrist,  though  the  sequence  of  his  terms 
is  fixed  by  their  relations  rather  than  their  several  values,  must  give  a 

^  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  472. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  269.  3  Ibid.,  p.  472.  ^  Ibid.,  pp.  269-70. 


THE  IDEA  IN  PSYCHOLOGY 


33 


real  value  to  the  final  one  he  reaches;  so  the  thinker  in  words  must  let 
his  concluding  word  be  translated  into  its  full  sensible-image-value, 
under  penalty  of  thought  being  left  unrealized  and  pale.”^ 

How  does  the  image  in  the  conclusion  differ  from  any  other  ?  Why 
does  not  this  image  go  on  pointing  to  still  other  meanings,  why  is  it  alone 
fitted  to  overcome  the  pale  cast  of  thought  and  bring  it  into  touch  with 
reality.  If  image  is  of  so  little  importance  in  its  everyday  place  in  the 
stream,  how  does  it  effect  the  magical  result  of  such  a  transformation 
in  the  conclusion  ? 

Angell  makes  no  explicit  statement  as  to  the  relative  importance 
of  image  and  meaning.  He  says  of  the  image: 

It  is  the  psychical  device  by  which  we  are  enabled  consciously  to  focalize 
upon  our  acts  the  lessons  of  our  previous  relevant  experiences,  and  through 
which  we  forecast  the  future  in  the  light  of  the  past.^  ....  It  is  the  image 
which  affords  us  the  method  whereby  we  shake  off  the  shackles  of  the  world 
of  objects  immediately  present  to  sense,  and  secure  the  freedom  to  overstep 
the  limits  of  space  and  time  as  our  fancy,  or  our  necessity,  may  dictate.^  .... 
If  I  wish  to  express  some  proposition  with  the  greatest  force  and  clearness, 
I  go  about  it  by  calling  into  my  mind  auditory-motor  word  images.-* 

The  above  passages  certainly  attribute  a  large  place  to  imagery, 
but  other  statements  reveal  the  same  tendency,  shown  in  the  citations 
from  James,  to  regard  the  specific  character  of  the  image  as  indifferent: 
“But  provided  that,  in  our  use  of  an  image,  we  recognize  it  as  really 
symbolizing  the  class,  and  not  an  individual,  and  use  it,  intending  it  to 
accomplish  this  purpose  for  us,  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  what  special 
kind  of  imagery  we  happen  to  employ . 

Citing  further,  we  find  not  only  that  one  image  may  be  the  bearer 
of  meanings  signifying  two  entirely  different  things,  but  also  that 
different  images  may  be  bearers  of  the  same  meaning. 

But  how  is  it  that  we  can  think  about  the  same  things  when  the  content 

of  our  thought  is  so  different  ?  The  content  of  our  thought  is,  so  far  at  least 

as  concerns  the  knowledge  process,  always  made  up  of  imagery.  Today  this 

may  be  largely  auditory  and  verbal,  tomorrow  largely  visual . But  pro- 

yided  I  use  the  different  image  to  stand  for  the  same  meanings  on  the  two  days, 
I  shall  come  out  perfectly  well  and  my  thought  will  unquestionably  have  been 
about  the  same  object  and  its  relations.  Thus  it  comes  to  pass  that,  although 
we  never  have  literally  the  same  image  twice  in  our  consciousness,  we  never¬ 
theless  can  think  the  same  meanings  again  and  again.^ 

^  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  p.  271.  ^  Ibid.,  p.  219. 

2  Psychology,  chap,  viii,  p.  219.  5  Ibid.,  chap,  x,  p.  252. 

i  Ibid.,  21T.  ^  ^  Ibid.,]). 


34  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


Image,  the  “stable  psychic  fact  which  we  can  hold  still  and  look  at 
as  long  as  we  like,”  has  apparently  no  intrinsic  function  in  the  changing, 
developing  meaning,  but  just  as  evidently  its  specific  quality  is  indif¬ 
ferent  in  the  realm  of  unchanging  meaning.  As  mental  event  it  becomes 
a  symbol,  albeit  an  indifferent  and  not  an  indigenous  one,  of  meaning. 
Indeed,  it  is  given  Just  the  status  which  Bradley  accords  the  idea 
as  a  bit  of  psychical  stuff.  “Mental  event,”  he  says,  “is  unique  and 
particular,  but  meaning  in  its  use  is  cut  off  from  the  existence  and  from 
the  rest  of  the  fluctuating  content.  It  loses  its  relation  to  the  particular 
symbol,  it  stands  as  an  adjective  to  be  referred  to  some  subject  but 
indifferent  in  itself  to  every  special  subject.”^  But  we  have  pointed  out 
that  it  is  this  interpretation  of  the  relation  of  the  image  to  meaning 
which  opens  the  way  to  a  clean-cut  division  between  logic  and  psychology. 

In  summary  we  note,  first,  the  insistence  of  the  psychologist  upon 
the  organic  relationship  between  image  and  meaning,  then  the  gradual 
stripping-off  of  the  functional  significance  of  the  image;  with  James  the 
image  is  “functionally  of  least  importance”  and  the  stuff  of  which  it  is 
made  is  of  no  consequence;  with  Angell  the  image  is  a  symbol  but 
its  specific  character  is  a  matter  of  indifference.  Further,  the  image 
possesses  no  peculiar  characteristic  which  makes  its  function  unique, 
that  is,  which  makes  it  the  bearer  of  this,  rather  than  of  that,  meaning, 
for  not  only  does  it  appear  that  one  image  may  carry  two  meanings, 
but,  obviously  enough,  different  images  may  symbolize  the  same  mean¬ 
ing.  Its  structural  and  anatomical  make-up  thus  has  no  intimate 
influence  on  meaning  either  as  a  growing,  changing,  dynamic  thing, 
or  on  meaning  as  realm  of  organized  concepts.  The  image  is  thus 
practically  denied  a  place  in  the  cognitive  function.  The  reasons  for 
this  shutting-out  of  the  image  from  the  knowledge  function  are  interest¬ 
ing.  On  the  one  hand,  image  is  the  unique,  the  psychical,  the  transitory 
element  of  thought;  it  is  too  unstable  to  serve  as  a  knowledge  tool. 
Knowledge  must  be  characterized  by  permanence  and  objectivity;  we 
must  be  able  to  mean  eternally  the  same.  Concepts  which  do  not 
change  into  each  other  are  the  stuff  of  which  knowledge  must  be  made. 
On  the  other  hand,  image  is  the  ‘brute’  existential  fact  of  sensuous 
content;  it  stays  fixed — you  may  turn  it  round  on  a  pin  and  view  it 
as  the  entomologist  does  the  transfixed  butterfly;  it  is  too  inflexible  to 
lend  itself  to  the  growing,  moving,  developing  cognitive  content.  Now, 
curiously  enough,  it  is  the  meaning  which  is  the  evanescent,  the  change¬ 
able  and  elusive,  the  diaphanous  medium  of  change  and  development, 

^  Bradley,  Logic,  p.  7. 


THE  IDEA  IN  PSYCHOLOGY 


35 


and  the  image,  unstable  and  transitive  existence  that  it  was  found  to  be, 
is  too  fixed  and  permanent.  The  antithesis  we  have  here  thrown  into 
high  relief  doubtless  seems  forced,  but  these  two  attitudes  toward  the 
image  are  unmistakably  present  in  psychological  ‘explanation  and  de¬ 
scription.’  Each  in  its  own  way  has  a  justification,  but  when  combined 
uncritically,  as  if  tenable  from  one  and  the  same  standpoint,  and  pressed 
into  the  service  of  logic,  the  result  is  an  insoluble  knowledge  problem. 

It  is  not  to  be  gathered  from  the  letter  of  any  one  passage  that  this 
robbing  of  the  image  of  all  cognitive  dignity  is  intentional,  but  the  cumu¬ 
lative  effect  is  undoubtedly  that  of  lessening,  to  the  point  of  negligibility, 
the  image  function.  Yet,  as  if  by  way  of  compensation,  the  image  is 
granted  an  indispensable  role  in  the  account  of  those  cognitive  activities 
which  involve  a  direct  attitude  toward  reality.  Sensorial  attention, 
perception,  discrimination,  simultaneous  association  are  all  impossible 
without  the  image.  Indeed,  the  image  would  seem  to  be  the  sine  qua 
non  of  apprehending  experience  in  its  form  of  existential  reality,  or  more 
simply,  of  becoming  aware  of  “particular  material  things  present  to 
sense.”  In  attention,  for  instance,  there  is  the  ideational  preparation 
in  the  form  of  an  image  of  what  one  is  expecting  to  hear,  see,  etc.  The 
presence  of  the  image,  the  psychologist  tells  us,  constitutes  just  the 
attitude  of  attention.  In  discrimination,  the  image  is  necessary  if  I 
wish  to  select,  to  differentiate  from  its  context,  to  isolate,  in  short,  to 
make  an  object  stand  out  as  having  independent  existence  as  a  thing. 
In  these  instances  the  image  seems  to  be  present  as  a  fairly  explicit 
form  of  “figured  consciousness.”  In  perception,  too,  the  image  plays 
a  part.  In  Sully’s  words,  “perception  is  that  process  by  which  the 
mind  supplements  a  sense  impression  by  an  accompaniment  or  escort 
of  revived  sensations,  the  whole  aggregate  of  actual  and  revived  sen¬ 
sations  being  solidified  and  integrated  into  the  form  of  a  percept.”^ 
Titchener  likewise  defines  perception  as  an  “interpretation  of  sensa¬ 
tion,”^  that  is,  it  is  the  response  through  a  centrally  aroused  ideational 
escort,  or  imagery,  to  a  given  sensorial  content.  Perception  of  “particu¬ 
lar  material  objects  present  to  sense,”  thus,  is  not  a  compound,  or  an 
aggregate,  of  given  sense  qualities,  but  involves  imagery,  and  from  the 
psychologist’s  own  account,  the  amount  and  kind  of  imagery  marks 
the  difference  between  correct  and  illusory  perception.  But  if  the  psy¬ 
chologist  considers  the  image  an  indispensable  condition  of  cognizing 
reality  in  its  immediate  perceptual  form,  the  image  equally  represents 

*  Sully,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  chapter  on  “Perception.” 

2  Titchener,  Primer  of  Psychology,  chapter  on  “Perception.” 


36  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


reality  when  it  is  ‘absent  to  sense.’  Angell  defines  the  image  as  “the 
consciousness  of  particular  material  objects  absent  to  sense.”  The 
image,  that  is,  besides  being  the  precondition  of  coming  into  relation 
with  reality  present  to  sense,  remains  the  representative  of  reality  when 
it  is  absent.  Further,  it  is  the  idea  as  image  which  the  psychologist 
makes  the  forerunner  or  immediate  stimulus  to  an  overt  response,  and 
is  therefore  the  condition,  so  to  speak,  of  future  connection  with  reality. 
The  psychologist  thus  seems  to  make  the  image  nothing  less  than  the 
individual’s  point  of  contact  with  reality,  present,  past,  and  to  come. 
Under  such  circumstances  to  deny  the  image  a  decisive  place  in  the 
cognitive  function  would  bid  fair  to  leave  knowledge  without  connection 
with  reality. 

If  “all  consciousness  is  figured”  with  this  kind  of  stuff,  the  logician, 
at  any  rate,  thinks  that  the  particular  pattern  of  the  figure  ought  to 
make  a  pretty  vital  difference;  the  subtlest  difference  in  the  figure  ought 
to  mean  a  corresponding  difference  in  the  relation  of  the  individual  to 
reality  and  hence  to  knowledge.^  Yet  we  pointed  out  the  negligible  part 
the  image  played  in  the  higher  cognitive  processes.  The  image  gradually 
degenerates;  from  the  intimacy  of  its  direct  connection  with  reality, 
it  becomes  a  substitute  or  representative  of  reality.  As  such  it  is  the 
stable  substantive  thing  that  stays  for  observation;  it  is  the  ‘copy’ 
image.  Then  its  reality  juices  are  further  squeezed  from  it  by  making 
this  substitute  merely  ‘my’  copy  of  reality.  Reduced  thus  to  a  mere 

^  Such  paragraphs  as  those  of  Angell’s  (cf.  Psychology,  chaps,  vi,  xx)  on  per¬ 
ception  as  developed  habit,  and  on  the  growth  of  voluntary  control,  which  show  that 
pari  passu  with  the  experimentation,  elimination  of  unnecessary  movements,  and 
reinforcing  of  successful  ones,  the  idea  is  undergoing  a  similar  dialectic  until  the 
idea,  as  cue  to  action,  represents  on  the  mental  side  the  organization  which  the  habit 
does  on  the  physical,  is  the  nearest  approach  by  psychology,  that  I  know  of,  to  just 
this  demand  of  logic.  The  problem  of  how  action  follows  thought  is  made  more 
manageable  for  psychology  by  restating  it  in  these  specific  terms,  rather  than  by  keep¬ 
ing  it  in  its  general  form;  for  if  every  idea  is  found  to  be  genetically  bound  up  with 
this  or  that  specific  reaction,  the  final,  or  the  ‘concluding’  image,  is  necessarily  the 
precursor  of  just  this  response  and  no  other.  Every  act  which  follows  from  an  idea, 
that  is,  which  can  be  called  a  conscious  act,  is  in  the  last  analysis  ideo-motor;  and  the 
motor  half  of  this  partnership  is  the  habit,  built  up  genetically  of  just  this  idea.  How¬ 
ever,  even  if  psychology  were  to  reinterpret  the  place  and  function  of  the  image  with 
reference  to  the  “higher  cognitive”  processes  consistently  with  the  implication  of 
this  genetic  account,  there  would  be  the  further  problem  for  logic  of  how  the  idea 
which  is  bound  up  with  the  growth  of  habit — both  with  its  break-up,  or  inhibition, 
and  with  all  stages  of  its  organization — can  have  validity  beyond  the  personal  limits 
of  the  habit  of  the  psychologist’s  individual.  This  point  is  considered  in  chaps,  iii 
and  V. 


THE  IDEA  IN  PSYCHOLOGY 


37 


psychical  existence,  its  only  reality  is  that  of  a  bit  of  fleeting  mental 
stuff,  which  by  some  miracle  of  survival  retains  the  function  of  a  ‘  symbol  ’ 
of  reality  meaning.  The  image  is  thus  given  a  position  somewhat  similar 
to  the  ‘  sensation  ’  of  the  associationists.  According  to  the  associationists 
an  object  was  an  aggregate  of  sense  qualities,  and  these,  as  simple  and 
unitary,  were  discrete  impressions.  To  give  them  body  and  to  carry 
them  out  of  the  flatland  of  sense  impression  into  a  third  dimension  of 
permanence  and  self-identical  ‘thinghood,’  it  was  necessary  to  add  an 
‘unknown  somewhat,’  or  ‘substance,’  or  ‘fiction’  of  the  imagination. 
Now  the  psychologist,  although  apparently  making  the  image  the 
counterpart  of  sensation,  really  does  not  do  so.  He  places  it  rather  on 
the  level  of  complexity  with  perception;  he  speaks  of  it  as  “the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  particular  material  objects  absent  to  sense.”  There  appears 
to  be  no  such  thing  as  an  image  of  red,  or  hot,  or  cold;  an  image  of  such 
a  simple  sense  quality  turns  out  to  be  a  conceptual  affair.  (The  after¬ 
image  is  not  an  image  in  the  sense  we  have  been  using  it  but  is  rather  a 
sensation.)  Perception,  we  said,  the  psychologist  defined  as  the  ‘inter¬ 
pretation  of  sensation’  and  not  as  an  aggregate  of  sense  qualities  all 
equally  present,  and  the  image  as  analogue  of  perception,  representing 
the  object  absent  to  sense,  is  not  made  up  of  sensory  quotes  all  given  on 
the  level  of  psychic  existences.  However,  when  the  image  is  thus  thinned 
out,  ‘meaning’  must  in  some  way  be  superimposed,  in  order  to  direct 
thought  out  of  the  internal  panorama  of  mere  “scene  and  counterfeit” 
into  a  world  of  reality. 

Turn  now  to  the  more  important  role  which  meaning  is  alleged  to 
play  in  the  knowledge  function.  Here,  if  anywhere,  psychology  should 
show  how  thought  deals  with  reality  at  first  hand — should  reveal  knowl¬ 
edge  in  the  making.  In  the  judgment  process,  psychology  should  have 
ample  opportunity  to  exhibit  ‘  meaning  ’  as  that  vital  element,  over  and 
above  the  image,  which  makes  for  valid  knowledge.  But  the  psy¬ 
chologist’s  treatment  of  the  judgment— we  hold  that  it  is  a  thoroughly 
adequate  one  from  his  standpoint — at  once  translates  the  process  into 
a  manipulation  of  concepts.  To  quote  from  Angell’s  succinct  account: 

In  the  judgment,  “the  book  is  heavy,”  we  have  the  concept  heavy  united 
with  the  concept  book.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  judgment,  “the  book  is  not 
heavy,”  we  have  the  concepts  apparently  sundered  from  one  another.  Even 
in  this  case,  however,  it  is  obvious  that  in  the  mental  state,  of  which  the 
judgment  is  the  expression,  the  two  ideas  were  together,  as  truly  as  in  the 

first  case.^ 

^  Psychology,  chap,  xi,  p.  269  (first  two  italics  mine). 


38  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


Citing  further: 

So  far  as  we  predicate  anything  of  an  object — for  example,  “iron  is  a  metal” 
— it  may  be  said  that  we  have  simply  dissected  the  idea  of  iron  (our  concept) , 
which  was  already  present  to  our  minds,  instead  of  adding  some  new  idea,  i.e., 
metal.  Taken  literally,  this  is  a  true  statement  of  the  facts.  It  is  only  false 

by  virtue  of  that  which  it  fails  to  add . Judgment  is,  then,  in  its  most 

explicit  forms  undoubtedly  a  process  in  which  we  synthesize  concepts  in  the 
course  of  noting  and  asserting  relations.^ 

In  the  above  passages  there  is  no  intention  of  stressing  the  fact  that 
the  author  seems  to  make  judgment  subsequent  to  concept.  This  he 
certainly  does  not  do,  for  he  gives  a  comprehensive  account  of  the 
genetic  relationship  of  concept  and  judgment,  in  which  he  points  out 
that  if  genetic  priority  is  insisted  upon,  it  must  be  accorded  the 
judgment,^  but  that  judgment  and  concept  develop  contemporaneously 
rather  than  in  serial  order.  Our  concern  is  with  the  definition  of  the 
judgment  as  a  synthesis  and  analysis  of  concepts.  Is  there  a  develop¬ 
ment  of  knowledge  as  the  result  of  this  synthetic-analytic  activity? 
James  says:  “No  one  of  them  develops  into  any  other.  But  if  two  of 
them  are  thought  at  once,  their  relation  may  come  to  consciousness 
and  form  matter  for  a  third  conception.”^  Similarly  Angell  states  that 

the  concepts  which  we  unite  are  with  equal  certainty  already  elements  of  our 
stock  of  knowledge,  and  we  may  seem  to  have  made  no  gain  by  the  judgment, 
much  less  have  added  a  new  idea  to  some  old  idea.  But  the  gain  is  often  very 
real,  because  the  synthesis  may  bring  out  relations  which  previously  were  not 
clearly  cognizant.  From  this  point  of  view  judgment  is  not  so  much  a  matter 
of  wholly  creating  new  mental  material  as  it  is  a  matter  of  ordering  our  mental 
equipment  in  the  most  efficient  manner.-* 

Granting  that  the  judgment  thus  secures  a  new  ordering  of  our 
mental  equipment  which  represents  an  advance  in  knowledge,  what 
is  the  relation  between  this  new  arrangement  of  our  mental  furniture 
and  reality  ?  Is  this  new  order  which  has  been  secured  by  the  synthesis 
and  analysis  of  concepts,  or  of  thought-relations,  one  which  holds  for 
reality  as  well  as  for  thought  ?  How  is  this  possible,  since  the  process 
has  been  confined  to  the  realm  of  conceptual  meanings  ?  The  problem 
which  the  psychologist  has  to  face  if  he  turn  logician  is  precisely  this, 
of  how  purely  mediate  thought-activity  can  have  valid  reference  to 
a  reality  completely  outside  of  it,  especially  since  during  the  interim 
of  this  manipulation  there  was  not  even  the  pretense  of  connection  with 

*  Psychology,  chap,  xi,  pp.  277-78,  3  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  466. 

*  Ihid.,  pp.  270  f.  4  Psychology,  chap,  xi,  p.  278. 


THE  IDEA  IN  PSYCHOLOGY 


39 


reality  through  the  sense  quotes  of  the  image.  (It  is  especially  with 
reference  to  the  concept  that  psychologists  are  generally  agreed  that 
the  specific  nature  of  the  image  is  a  matter  of  indifference.)  It  is 
from  this  source  that  the  absolutist  logician  gets  his  predicate — the 
‘floating  adjective,’  the  ‘non-temporal  meaning,  loosed  from  its  relation 
to  any  particular  symbol’ — with  which  he  has  so  much  difficulty  when 
he  wishes  to  refer  its  ‘ideal  content’  to  reality.  Indeed,  it  is  the  logic 
which  repudiates  psychological  affiliation  that  has  adopted  the  psy¬ 
chologist’s  data  where  they  are  not  relevant.  We  are  back  again  in 
the  conception  of  thought  as  a  purely  mediate,  or  inner  discursive 
process,  except  that  ‘meanings’  are  substituted  for  the  associationist’s 
atomic  ideas. 

Does  the  psychologist  as  psychologist  rightly  ignore  the  question 
of  this  reference  of  thought  to  reality  as  irrelevant,  because  of  his  initial 
h3q)othesis  of  the  pre-established  connection  between  thought  and 
things?  It  is  our  opinion  that  the  following  statement,  although  it 
involves  for  logic  a  sheer  assumption  of  the  correspondence  of  thought 
and  thing,  is  a  satisfactory  statement  from  the  psychologist’s  standpoint. 

“This  wood  is  white”  is  an  instance  of  the  analytic  judgment.  It  exhibits 
a  property  of  the  wood  which  is  inherent  in  it,  and  may,  therefore,  be  said  to 
involve  an  analysis  of  the  concept  “this  wood.”  “Wood  is  combustible”  is 
a  synthetic  judgment,  because  it  adds  to  the  idea  of  wood  the  idea  of  com¬ 
bustibility,  which  is  not  immediately,  nor  obviously,  implied  in  it.  We  shall 
presently  see  reason  to  believe  that  synthetic  and  analytic  judgments  are 
psychologically  really  one,  and  for  our  present  purpose  we  can  at  least  see 
that  they  involve,  like  all  the  other  cases  which  we  have  examined,  the  mental 
synthesis  of  concepts,  whose  objective  union,  or  separateness,  we  mentally  predicate.'^ 

The  psychologist’s  account  of  the  judgment,  then,  is  complete  when 
he  has  secured  the  conceptual  content  or  idea  which  is  to  serve  as  predi¬ 
cate  of  reality.  With  the  nature  and  the  possibility  of  this  predication 
psychology  cannot  concern  itself;  it  shows  the  judgment  affirming  the 
idea,  a  completely  determined  predicate,  of  a  reality  or  ‘  thing  ’  equally 
determinate.  The  gap  between  idea  and  reality  with  which  it  starts, 
it  bridges  with  the  simple  assumption  of  their  agreement.  Nor  could 
psychology,  by  expanding  its  treatment  of  the  judgment,  meet  this 
problem  unless  it  is  content  to  accept  the  logical  skepticism  of  absolutism 
as  its  outcome.  Although  the  psychologist  maintains  that  he  is  giving 
an  account  of  thought  as  genuinely  adaptive  and  reconstructive,  the 
possibility  of  that  adaptation  and  reconstruction  he  does  not  discuss. 

^  Ibid.,  chap,  xi,  p.  270  (italics  mine). 


40  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


If  the  image,  on  the  one  hand,  was  left  without  definite  connection  with 
meaning  as  the  permanent  and  universal  and  objective  phase  of  thought, 
meaning,  on  the  other  hand,  was  left  without  guaranty  of  anchorage 
to  reality.  The  distinction  of  image  and  meaning  as  the  psychologist 
employs  it  does  not  avail  to  make  the  idea  such  a  tool  of  knowledge  as 
instrumental  logic  demands. 

It  is  obvious  that  instrumental  logic  cannot  stop  here;  nor  can  it 
proceed  directly  from  the  point  at  which  psychology  leaves  off,  if  it 
hopes  to  effect  some  organic  union  between  thought  and  reality.  On 
the  one  hand  there  is  for  psychology  the  reality,  the  given  specific  objec¬ 
tive  existence,  then  there  is  the  image  whose  reality  as  psychical  stuff 
must  somehow  be  reckoned  with,  and  finally  there  is  meaning  or  objec¬ 
tive  significance.  I  can  get  a  copy  of  reality  and  then  I  have  an  image; 
but  it  is  ‘  my  ’  copy,  that  is,  my  image,  and  it  is  not  reality,  yet  has  a 
peculiar  reality  of  its  own.  The  judgment  has,  then,  the  task  of  bringing 
together  a  subjective  and  an  objective  reality.  Shall  it  do  this  through 
^meaning’  as  a  half-way  house  between  objective  reality,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  subjective  reality,  on  the  other  ?  But  meaning  has  been 
shown  to  be  a  most  unsatisfactory  go-between.  Psychology  may  assume, 
but  cannot  demonstrate,  the  correspondence  of  thought  and  reality. 
Logic  finds  it  necessary  to  reinterpret  not  only  idea  but  reality  also. 
Such  a  difference  in  interpretation  will  give  the  locus  of  the  psychologist’s 
standpoint  with  reference  to  logic. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  LOCUS  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGIST’S  STANDPOINT 


The  dualism  of  thought  and  thing  which  for  psychology  is  initial 
and  persistent  is  for  logic  derivative  and  occasional.  There  is  for  psy¬ 
chology  a  structural  and  existential  discreteness,  “washing  like  an 
innavigable  sea,”  between  idea  and  object,  whereas  for  logic  this  duality 
is  a  dichotomy  of  aspect  which  reality  assumes  only  under  specific 
circumstance.  Logic,  that  is,  traces  the  career  of  object  and  idea — 
subject  and  predicate — in  two  directions.  From  the  dualism  in  which, 
ceasing  to  be  “ways  of  living,”^  they  stand  forth  as  explicit  existences, 
it  follows  them  back  to  their  common  origin  where  they  were  absorp¬ 
tively  integrated  in  a  unity  and  continuity  of  actuality.  Then  it  accom¬ 
panies  them  forward  to  a  common  destiny  where  they  merge  their 
identities  in  a  newer  and  fuller  immediacy,  in  which  reality  is  neither 
an  external  environment  of  objects,  nor  an  inner  continuity  of  mental 
states.^  Thus  the  locus  of  the  psychologist’s  standpoint  falls  within 
that  of  the  logician’s,  and  differences  in  characterization  of  idea,  object, 
and  the  individual  ensue. 

Psychology  takes  its  point  of  departure  from  the  polarized  situation 
in  which  idea  and  object  confront  each  other.  Entering  the  breach, 
as  it  were,  psychology  fixes  upon  that  function  of  thought  whereby 

^  Dewey,  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  p.  49. 

2  The  intention  throughout  this  paper  is  to  equate  reality  not  merely  with  the 
‘subject,’  or  ‘fact’  or  ‘object’  aspect  of  the  judgment,  but  to  identify  it  with  the 
cosmic  unity  and  continuity  within  which  and  out  of  which  the  judgment  moment 
comes  to  pass.  It  is  not  the  equivalent  of  ‘experience,’  if  that  is  taken  to  mean 
“experience  of  something  foreign  supposed  to  impress  us”  (James,  Principles  of  Psy¬ 
chology,  II,  619).  The  ‘external’  or  ‘environmental’  characteristic  of  reality  pertains 
to  the  ‘subject’  phase  of  the  judgment  under  certain  specific  exigencies  of  function; 
the  term  ‘external  reality,’  therefore,  is  used  not  as  applicable  to  reality  as  a  whole, 
but  as  convenient  to  designate  this  attribute  of  ‘givenness’  in  the  subject  phase  of  the 
judgmental,  or  tensional  situation,  in  which  reality  assumes  existential  expression. 
If  experience  is  interpreted,  not  in  the  subjective  sense  of  the  registration  in  the 
individual  of  an  external  environment,  but  is  construed  rather  as  envelopmental, 
i.e.,as  embracing  within  the  unity  of  its  process  the  opposition  of  object  and  idea, 
then  reality  and  experience  are  interchangeable  terms.  There  is,  however,  a  significant 
difference  between  this  interpretation  of  experience,  and  experience  conceived  as  ‘my  ’ 
experience,  and  ‘your’  experience.  (Cf.  chapters  following  and  especially  chap,  v.) 

41 


42  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


it  ^ represents’^  a  reality,  hitherto  organized  and  integral,  but  now  in 
process  of  disintegration,  and  in  need  of  reconstruction.  For,  in  the 
moment  when  reality,  through  its  inner  strife  and  tension,  is  precipitated 
into  an  obstacle  or  object  resisting  immediate  control,  the  idea,  locating 
the  disturbance,  reviewing,  surveying  the  situation  in  which  the  diffi¬ 
culty  arose — in  order  to  select  and  determine  the  materials  and  con¬ 
ditions  within  which  reorganization  can  take  place — reflects  a  more 
or  less  definitely  organized  content,  and  seems  to  stand  over  against  a 
world  of  completely  given  externality.  Seizing  the  idea  at  this,  its 
moment  of  widest  differentiation  from  ‘external’  reality,  the  psychologist 
has  stopped  its  further  function  of  healing  the  breach  and  initiating 
the  new  condition  in  which  both  idea  and  object  shall  be  annulled  as 
existences.  The  psychologist’s  purpose  preserves  the  dualism;  the 
reality  which  the  idea  reflects  is  taken  as  completely  determined  and 
external.  The  outer  world  is  not  indeed  sensuous  stuff  for  thought  to 
fashion  into  ‘  thinghood  ’ ;  it  is  already  there.  The  image  in  its  pristine 
purity,  before  it  fades  into  a  mere  ghost  of  psychic  existence,  is  a  con¬ 
tent  which  has  precisely  a  “point  for  point”  correspondence  with  the 
particular  object  absent  to  sense;  that  is,  the  organization  of  the  idea 
is  the  reflected  organization  of  the  object.  Titchener  states  that  “the 
idea  is  unitary  because  it  is  the  conscious  representation  of  a  single 
object  or  process  in  the  outside  world.  This  view  of  the  equivalence 
of  the  inner  to  the  outer  order  should  make  of  psychology  a  thoroughly 
objective  science;  there  should  be  no  objective-subjective  problem  for 
it  to  consider,  since  the  inner  as  exact  counterpart  of  the  outer  is  a 
literal  translation,  through  the  medium  of  the  psycho-physical  organism, 
of  external  reality  into  terms  of  consciousness.  Ideas  are  images,  indeed 
they  are  after-images,  of  objects  and  events  in  the  external  world.  There 
would  be  no  problem  of  relating  the  idea  to  reality  except  as  a  matter 
concerning  the  efficacy  of  the  psycho-physical  machinery.  Mead  says : 

What  we  generally  refer  to  when  we  are  speaking  of  psychical  states  are 
elements  of  objects  which  are  simply  abstracted  from  the  objects  themselves. 
I  speak  of  the  color  red,  and  in  so  doing  have  in  mind  something  that  I  have 
abstracted  from  certain  red  objects.  To  get  a  concrete  picture  of  this,  I  call 
to  mind  the  visual  picture  of  the  object  itself.  In  either  case  the  object  is 
itself  known  as  objective;  for  even  the  picture  of  the  imagination  is  objective 
so  long  as  it  is  dealing  with  the  element  of  an  objective  world  which  is  not 

*  Cf.  Moore,  The  Functional  versus  the  Representational  Theories  of  Knowledge 
in  Locke’s  Essay,  p.  57. 

2  Titchener,  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  183. 


LOCUS  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGIST’S  STANDPOINT 


43 


questioned,  however  fantastically  it  is  put  together.  Elements  of  conscious¬ 
ness  are  not  as  such  elements  of  a  psychical  character.^ 

The  ‘objects’  with  which  psychology  deals  are,  then,  as  tangible 
and  measurable  as  the  objects  of  physical  science.  Yet  we  noted  above 
how  the  idea  was  reduced  to  ‘subjectivity’  with  the  subsequent  attempt 
to  cram  objectivity  into  it.  It  is  only  by  occupying  two  positions  at 
once  that  such  a  situation  arises  for  psychology — only  as  psychology 
views  idea  as  at  once  authoritative  version  of  reality  as  it  comes  through 
the  instrumentality  of  the  psycho-physical  organism,  and  yet  as  mere 
representation  of  that  reality  in  the  original.  There  is,  thus,  the  per¬ 
manent  dualism  between  percept  and  object  perceived;  between  idea 
and  object.  The  idea  which  as  presentation  is  itself  an  object  becomes 
merely  a  mode  of  apprehending  a  reality  outside  of  itself.  The  ascrip¬ 
tion  of  ‘subjectivity’  to  the  idea  is  not  a  consequence  of  reducing  the 
object  to  equivalent  conscious  elements,  but  is  rather  the  result  of 
generalizing  both  poles  of  the  dichotomized  situation.  When  the  object- 
pole  is  universalized  into  an  external  environment,  the  idea-pole  is 
universalized  into  a  subjective  ideality;  when  ‘things’  constitute  an 
impersonal  and  external  environment,  ‘thought’  must  be  personal  and 
internal. 

Instrumental  logic  accepts  the  realism  of  psychology  which  makes  the 
idea  a  factual  existence  and  content — a  form  which  reality  manifests 
under  certain  conditions — but  it  rejects  the  subjectivism  which  makes  it 
stand  as  a  representation  of  an  absent  reality.  The  idea  has  for  logic  as 
real  a  status  as  the  psychologist  chooses  to  give  it,  and  yet  it  may  mark 
the  subjectivity  of  experience  in  a  way  that  the  idea  for  psychology 
cannot.  Logic  finds  the  subjectivity  of  the  situation  in  which  the  idea 
occurs,  not  in  that  reality  is  absent  to  sense,  but  just  in  the  fact  that 
reality  is  present  in  ‘ objective  j  i.e.,  ambiguous  form.  For  logic  there  is  no 
reality  already  fixed  and  organized  from  which,  as  object  antecedently 
present  to  sense,  the  image  is  derived,  and  which  it  represents  in  complete 
perceptual-like  wholeness  when  it  is  absent  to  sense.  In  any  genuine 
tensional  situation,  reality  is  not  present  as  completely  determined. 
Reality  is  particularized  and  objectified  as  present  to  sense,  only  as  it 
is  in  process  of  disorganization,  and  in  need  of  reorganization.  The 
image,  moreover,  reflects  not  an  external  reality,  but  reality  in  process 
of  becoming  externalized,  dismembered,  disrupted— reality  as  partial 
and  incomplete.  The  image  is  not  the  reflection  of  the  object  previously 
present  to  sense  but  now  absent;  it  is  rather  the  consciousness  of  the 

^  Mead,  Philosophical  Review,  IX  (1900),  lo-ii. 


44  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


absence,  that  is,  the  projection  or  reflection,  of  that  which  will  so  har¬ 
monize  and  complete  the  ‘present  to  sense’  that  it  will  pass  from  the 
partiality  of  its  givenness  as  objectified  existence  into  a  new  totality  in 
which  the  particularity  of  this  ‘objectivity’  will  be  annulled. 

In  tracing  the  idea  and  object  back  of  the  dualism,  logic  finds  that 
they  do  not  exist  apart  and  complete,  each  in  itself,  awaiting  the 
judgment  to  effect  their  connection  and  agreement.  They  exist  only  in 
and  during  the  judgment  moment.  It  is  at  once  the  function  of  the 
judgment  (i)  to  particularize  reality  into  objectivity,  for  the  purpose  of 
further  control,  and  (2)  to  overcome  that  particularity  in  order  to  inaugu¬ 
rate  a  new  continuity.  There  is  no  problem  of  predicating  existence  ofi 
the  idea,  or  of  qualifying  reality  by  an  ideal  content;  the  idea-object 
duality  is  the  content  of  reality  expressed  in  existential  form.  The  pres¬ 
ence  of  the  idea  or  image  is  a  sign  that  reality  has  become  epitomized — 
on  the  one  hand  analyzed,  on  the  other  synthesized — into  existence.  But 
it  is  only  when  a  content — part  and  parcel  of  the  very  constitution  of 
reality — resists  inclusion  within  the  present  trend  of  activity  that  it  is 
thus  objectified ;  and  by  virtue  of  this  detachment,  the  direction  or  course 
which  reality  is  taking  also  becomes  explicit,  as  idea.  The  object  is  not 
real  existence  and  the  idea  negation  of  real  existence;  the  object  is  the 
outcome  of  past  organization,  the  idea  the  outpost  of  reorganization. 
T ogether  they  define  the  status  of  reality  in  the  present,  as  being  of  this  or 
that  kind,  as  necessary  to  suffer  this  or  that  reconstruction,  before  it  may 
leave  this  stage,  and  enter  upon  a  new  level  of  development.  The  differ¬ 
entiation  between  idea  and  object  is  not  successive,  but  simultaneous  and 
progressive.  Idea  and  object,  in  process  of  reciprocal  dialectic,  constitute 
the  existential  moment  of  reality. 

There  is,  further,  no  fixed  line  of  cleavage  between  object  and  idea, 
as  between  that  which  is  present  in  the  form  of  sensory  immediacy,  and 
that  which  is  not.  In  the  moment  of  conflict  when  some  content  becomes 
detached  as  object,  reality  appears  to  be  identified  with  just  this  aspect 
of  the  situation  so  immediately  and  compellingly  present  to  sense — so 
irretrievably  there,  and  external.  But  what  is  thus  present  is  entirely 
relative  to  the  context  of  the  situation;  it  is  by  virtue  of  its  character 
as  given,  or  sufficiently  organized  that  reality  takes  on  the  character  of 
sensory  immediacy,  and  not  vice  versa.  Lest  the  psychologist  regard 
this  as  taking  an  unwarrantable  liberty  with  the  absoluteness  and  the 
stability  of  sensory  experience,  it  is  well  to  remind  him  that  even  he 
offers  no  intrinsic  differentia  between  what  is  perceived  and  what  is 
imaged  or  remembered.  To  quote  Titchener: 


LOCUS  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGISTS  STANDPOINT 


45 


There  is  no  fundamental  psychological  difference  between  the  perception 

and  the  idea . Hence  although  we  might  be  tempted  for  convenience 

sake  to  follow  the  common  usage — to  employ  ‘perception’  to  denote  what 
is  now  before  us,  and  ‘idea’  to  denote  what  is  remembered  or  imagined — we 
should  be  obliged  constantly  to  remind  ourselves  that,  in  principle  the  two 
processes  are  the  same.  And  the  danger  of  forgetting  this  far  outweighs, 
in  psychology,  the  convenience  of  separating  the  terms.^ 

Again,  for  the  psychologist,  the  particular  material  object  present 
to  sense  turns  out  to  be  not  immediately  present  in  its  entirety,  but 
only  partly  present  as  sensorial  nucleus,  and  partly  imaged  or  remem¬ 
bered.  Under  analysis,  the  sensorial  nucleus  breaks  up  again  into  a 
given  and  a  supplied,  and  the  psychologist  is  led  into  an  infinite  regress — 
until  indeed  he  comes  full  circle  into  the  concept — when  he  attempts 
to  find  a  sensory  quale  as  a  fixed  ultimate,  irrespective  of  the  particular 
situation  in  which  it  may  happen  to  function  as  an  element,  that  is, 
as  the  sufficiently  elemental  and  given.  Sensory  quales  as  the  irreducible 
ultimates  of  the  psychologist  are  methodological  abstractions,  not 
because  they  do  not  occur  ‘pure’  or  alone,  but  because  the  very  existence 
of  a  sensory  nucleus  is  the  existence  of  reality  in  the  form  of  a  focal 
point  of  relationship.  Logic  regards  sensory  quales  not  as  intrusions 
from  an  external  environment,  but  as  the  more  or  less  stable  centers 
into  which  reality  has  become  organized  with  reference  to  typically 
recurrent  situations  where  they  function  as  adequate  bases  for  the  further 
development  of  reality.  They  are  the  points  of  contact  in  the  clash 
of  conflicting  situations;  they  are  the  residuum  which  rolls  out  as  the 
common  element  between  “colliding  contents,”^  and  which  may  be 
accepted  as  “there,”  since  they  are  the  common  denominator  between 
the  situation  just  past  and  the  situation  not  yet  consummated.  They 
are,  therefore,  not  discrete  ‘pin-points’  of  contact  with  a  reality,  which 
as  a  continuous  whole  lies  beyond  them,  but  are,  so  to  speak,  the  nodes 
of  reality,  which  mark  at  once  the  break  in  the  homogeneity  of  reality, 
and  the  basis  for  a  new  continuity. 

The  psychologist,  to  be  sure,  has  not  a  little  to  say  about  the  rela¬ 
tivity  of  sensation.  He  explains  how  its  specific  nature  depends  upon 
circumstance,  for  example,  upon  contrast,  expectation,  attention,  pre¬ 
vious  activity,  etc.  Yet,  these  possible  variations  of  intensity,  duration, 
and  characteristic  tang  are  regarded  as  more  or  less  accidental  and 
individual  differences  in  registering  the  presence  of  a  sensuous  stuff, 

^  Outlines  of  Psychology,  p.  149. 

^  Dewey,  Studies  hi  Logical  Theory,  p.  60,  footnote. 


46  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


which,  for  the  psychologist,  is  determined  and  external.  It  is  as  the 
apprehension  of  a  simple  fixed  quality  that  the  psychologist  interprets 
sensation  as  ultimate  and  elemental;  there  is  always  an  external  stimulus 
forcing  itself  upon  the  experient  by  means  of  sensation.  The  psy¬ 
chologist’s  definition  of  perception  as  the  interpretation  of  sensation 
illustrates  this  twofold  attitude  of  viewing  the  sensory  quales  as  them¬ 
selves  determined  by  the  context  in  which  they  occur  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  being  fixed  functions  of  the  object.  In  the  experiment  cited 
by  James  of  stripping  off  the  context  of  a  word  by  repeating  it  many 
times,  the  actual  sense  quales  are  said  to  change.^  Illusions,  too,  show 
that  subsequent  interpretation  produces  a  marked  change  in  charac¬ 
teristic  quale y  intensity,  and  extensity  of  sensation.  Yet  the  sensorial 
nucleus  itself  is  regarded  as  a  fixed  element,  or  function  of  the  object, 
and  the  supplied  factor,  or  interpretation,  as  the  variable  factor.  So 
psychology  may  justly  be  said  to  hold  to  the  externality  of  reality  as 
sensory  environment. 

Logic  maintains  that  reality  takes  on  the  character  of  an  environ¬ 
ment  of  sensory  immediacy  when  it  stands  as  the  sufficiently  simple  or 
elemental  residuum  to  which  a  given  situation  may  be  reduced,  pending 
its  reconstruction.  What  is  sensorial,  that  is,  varies  from  one  situation 
to  another;  anything  which  functions  as  adequate  basis  for  further 
procedure — groups  of  objects,  whole  landscapes,  so  to  speak,  ‘systems 
of  concepts’ — may  be  foreshortened  into  a  simple  real  on  the  level  of 
sensory  immediacy.  It  is  thus  that  logic  gets  rid  of  the  conception 
of  the  pure  mediacy  of  thought.  Thought  is  never  a  merely  mediate 
affair — a  discursive  process  busied  with  manipulating,  analyzing, 
synthesizing  conceptual  contents  which  must  subsequently  be  referred 
to  reality — but  deals  with  reality  in  the  form  of  sensory  immediacy, 
always.  Reality  as  sensory  immediacy,  that  is,  is  always  present  as 
one  member  of  the  tensional  or  genuine  judgmental  situation.  The 
problem,  to  be  sure,  is  often  to  find  just  what  this  reality  is;^  for  the  real 
is  the  fixed,  the  hard  and  fast,  the  static,  the  absolutely  given,  only 
within  the  limits  of  each  particular  crisis  in  reality.  The  task  is  to 
determine  how  much  is  irresistible  impact,  immovable  externality — how 
much,  and  what,  reality  is  “  there,”  as  adequate  basis  for  further  advance. 
In  other  words,  the  reality  which  at  the  first  moment  of  conflict  is 
precipitated  as  an  existence  so  obtrusively  given  and  present  to  sense 
must  be  analyzed,  broken  up,  so  that  it  shall  stand  no  longer  in  its  present 

^  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  II,  80-81. 

^  Dewey,  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  chap,  iii,  especially  p.  61. 


LOCUS  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGISTS  STANDPOINT 


47 


stubborn  concreteness  as  resisting  obstacle,  but  shall  yield  to  refashion¬ 
ing  in  order  that  it  may  fit  flexibly  into  a  new  context.  But  this  cannot 
be  accomplished  by  dissection  pure  and  simple.  It  can  be  effected  only 
by  a  kind  of  experimentation  in  which  it  must  be  abstracted  from  the 
setting  into  which  it  has  been  consolidated  or  crystallized  by  past 
constructions.  It  must  be  severed  from  what,  for  the  particular  situa¬ 
tion  in  question,  are  the  accidents  of  its  previous  concomitants.  It 
can  be  pried  from  its  context  only  as  it  is  used  tentatively  as  a  basis  now 
for  this  reconstruction  and  now  for  that;  and  with  each  tentative  recon¬ 
stituting  of  the  given,  its  reality  as  sensory  immediacy  is  changing. 
The  medium  in  and  through  which  reality  is  experimentally  fitted 
into  various  contexts  is  the  idea  as  representative,  that  is,  the  image. 
The  viewing  of  present  reality  as  finding  fulfilment  in  a  perspective  of 
projected  totality  is  the  imaging  of  reality.  The  whole  process  of  ex¬ 
perimentation,  or  using  the  given  as  a  carrier  for  a  shifting  series  of 
tentative  projections,  is  the  conceptualizing  of  reality.  Image,  that  is, 
does  not  re-present  or  reiterate  a  reality  already  organized,  nor  yet  does 
it  falsify  or  distort  it ;  it  is  rather  the  experimental  projection  of  reality 
as  transformed  and  reconstituted  by  virtue  of  its  status  in  a  new  context. 
This  holds  true  of  the  so-called  “memory”  image  as  well  as  of  that 
designated  “anticipatory.”  The  memory  image  is  not  a  re-call  or 
reproduction  of  reality  even  approximately  as  it  occurred,  but  is  a  calling 
into  existential  form  an  experience  not  in  that  form  originally.  In  the 
words  of  Dewey,  remembering  is  “re-membering.”^  The  image  is  not 
a  negation  of  reality  but  is  always  a  copartner  of  reality-as-datum;  it 
supplies  it,  so  to  speak,  with  a  fore  and  after  setting;  it  is  a  sort  of 
coefficient  which,  showing  how  the  datum  is  “to  be  taken”  at  any 
moment,  constitutes,  with  it,  the  existential  presence  of  reality. 

During  the  process  of  experimentation,  image,  as  the  projected  end 
or  totality,  has  served  as  guide  to  determine  the  area  within  which  the 
subject  as  immediately  given  reality  was  confined.  Reality,  as  subject 
on  the  other  hand,  as  providing  the  given  means  and  conditions  under 
which  redintegration  must  take  place,  is  reciprocally  determinative  of 
the  limits  of  image,  as  end  or  purpose.  Bradley’s  position  that  reality 
as  the  subject  of  the  judgment  is  too  rich  in  its  infinite  connections  to 
submit  itself  to  predication — that  one  can  go  on  indefinitely  tracing  out 
the  luxuriant  ramifications  of  its  relationships,  so  that  it  is  impossible 
to  include  it  under  the  compass  of  any  specified  ideal  contend — is  in 

*  Dewey  and  Tufts,  Ethics ,  p.  252. 

2  Bradley,  Logic;  cf.  chapters  on  “Inference.” 


48  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


keeping  with  a  failure  to  view  the  given  sensorial  content,  which  expresses 
reality  in  its  subject  relation,  as  definitely  determined  and  restricted 
within  the  boundaries  of  the  ideal  or  projected  end.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  conception  of  thought  as  purely  mediate,  with  an  infinite 
‘self-representative’  activity,  and  having  nothing  to  mark  the  limits 
within  which  it  is  mediate,  is  consistent  with  a  failure  to  view  the  ideal 
content  as  initiated,  and  checked,  with  reference  to  the  real  as  immediate 
sensory  existence. 

How  much  representation,  how  much  imagery  is  needed  before  the 
datum  is  fully  determined  depends  upon  the  extent  to  which  the  real, 
as  resisting  obstacle,  retains  the  characteristic  of  externality,  and  refuses 
to  suffer  incorporation  into  a  new  unity.  If  the  imagery  is  reduced  to  a 
‘fragment,’  so  is  the  external  reality — there  is  a  minimum  amount  of 
tension  in  the  developmental  movement  of  reality,  and  it  is,  therefore, 
not  expressed  in  existential  or  objective  form.  It  is  often  asserted  that 
an  image  worn  down  and  faded  may  be  the  carrier  of  rich  and  significant 
meaning.  From  what  standpoint  is  the  image  worn  and  faded;  what 
is  the  criterion  of  its  ‘  wholeness  ’  and  ‘  completeness  ’  ?  The  case  is 
rather  that  the  completer  and  fuller  the  imagery,  the  surer  the  indications 
that  reality  is  in  its  existential  and  relatively  static  stage  of  development. 
When  the  image  is  much  “worn  down”  and  meager,  it  is  because  there 
is  a  comparatively  ready  passage  from  the  tensional  moment  into  the 
redintegrated  situation. 

When  the  datum  has  been  finally  determined,  and  reality,  carrying 
within  it  the  fulness  of  former  immediacies,  has  been  telescoped  into 
a  real,  functioning  on  the  level  of  sensory  immediacy,  that  is,  as  a  stimulus 
initiating  a  direct  response,  reality  becomes  again  integral  and  homo¬ 
geneous.  So  thoroughly  do  ideal  and  given  flow  together  that  there  is 
no  distinction  between  percept  and  object  perceived,  between  sensori¬ 
motor  and  ideo-motor  activity;  between  stimulus  and  response ;  between 
experience  and  experient.  It  is  the  situation  which  is  not  knowledge, 
but  is  something  more  than  knowledge,  into  which  knowledge  leads,  and 
out  of  which  reality  may  again  be  born  twofold.  The  account  which 
the  psychologist  can  give  of  such  a  moment  as  this,  in  so  far  as  he  looks 
upon  all  experience  as  ‘my’  experience,  and  equates  all  experience  with 
my  consciousness  of  something  outside,  is  one  approaching  an  emotional 
status,  in  which  there  is  a  minimum  of  cognitive  awareness.  But 
emotion,  whatever  it  may  be  besides,  is  usually  regarded  by  the  psy¬ 
chologist  as  a  category  of  subjectivity;  it  is  the  peculiar  state  of  the 
individual  experient  as  distinguishable  from  the  object  of  his  experience. 


LOCUS  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGIST’S  STANDPOINT 


49 


Interpreted  in  this  wise,  emotion  would  not  properly  designate  the  con¬ 
dition  of  reality  in  which  there  is  annulled  the  distinction  between 
thinker  and  object,  doer  and  deed,  obstacle  and  aim.  This  moment 
in  which  reality,  enriched  by  the  mediation  or  harmony  of  the  erstwhile 
warring  elements  within  it,  sweeps  on  in  the  full- tide  of  a  more  intensive 
homogeneity  and  immediacy  may  suggest,  rather,  what  has  sometimes 
been  called  the  aesthetic  moment — the  moment  in  which,  as  it  were, 
reality,  functioning  now  as  so  direct  a  provocative  to  response  that  the 
objective-subjective  bifurcation  of  reality  does  not  take  place,  had  yet 
within  the  psycho-physical  organism  broken  up  into  stimuli  represent¬ 
ing  all  the  originally  distinct  and  unmediated  values,  and  which,  calling 
forth  correspondingly  manifold  responses,  mutually  inhibiting  and 
reinforcing  each  other,  gives  rise  to  the  organic  reverberation  of  the 
“stimulation-in-repose”  equilibrium,^  characteristic  of  the  moment  of 
“appreciation.”  But  if  the  aesthetic  moment  is  conceived  as  falling 
within  the  individual,  it  can  furnish  only  a  suggestive  analogue,  and 
not  a  real  name  for  the  mediated-immediacy-situation  which  recurs 
as  a  characteristic  epoch  of  the  evolution  of  reality.  This  situation 
is  not  located  within  the  individual;  the  individual  falls  within  the 
situation. 

Subjectivity,  logic  holds,  is  a  category  pertinent  only  to  the  situa¬ 
tion  in  which  the  dialectic  of  mutual  determination  of  idea  and  object 
takes  place.  It  is  not,  however,  to  be  ascribed  to  the  idea  or  image  in 
contradistinction  to  the  object;  subjectivity  is  just  the  tentative  aspecb* 
of  the  whole  movement.  As  equivalent  to  the  ‘personal,’  the  ‘uniquely 
individual,’  subjectivity  indicates  the  occurrence  of  just  this  crisis  in 
reality  which  has  never  occurred  before,  and  will  never  be  again.  For 
logic,  that  is,  the  individual  is  but  one  of  these  tensional  points  in  expe¬ 
rience.  He  exists  only  at  moments  when  reality  is  in  process  of  recon¬ 
struction;  he  is  the  center  of  conflicting  forces;  the  registration  of  stress 
and  strain  of  contending  elements.  He  comes  into  existence  from  a 
matrix  of  not  merely  social — if  social  signifies  only  a  larger  interrelation¬ 
ship  among  individuals  as  such — but  of  cosmic  relations  and  conditions. 
Idea  and  object  serve  to  bound  the  area  within  which  the  individual 
appears,  but  they  are  themselves  functions  of  cosmic  organization. 
Idea  does  not  occur  as  the  exclusive,  inner  possession  of  an  individual; 
it  belongs  no  more  to  the  individual  as  such  than  to  the  situation  as  a 
whole.  The  interruption  of  habit  which  it  registers  is  the  interruption 

1  Cf.  Puffer,  The  Psychology  of  Beauty,  chap.  iii. 

2  Dewey,  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  p.  53. 


50  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


of  the  habit  of  the  cosmic  community.  Nor  is  the  object,  as  forming 
the  other  boundary  within  which  the  individual  occurs,  a  particular 
reality,  or  portion,  torn  from  a  larger  context,  but  is  rather  the  whole 
universe  of  reality  focused  into  just  this  here-and-now  aspect.  The 
judgment  process — the  idea-object  dialectic — as  we  pointed  out  earlier, 
is  at  once  a  synthesis  of  reality  into  concrete  particularity,  and  an 
analysis  revealing  the  fundamentals  or  universal  elements  of  its  organi¬ 
zation.  For  the  real,  as  precipitated  obstacle,  is  a  crystallization  or 
embodiment  of  the  principles  of  the  organization  of  reality;  and  on 
the  other  hand,  during  the  interim  in  which  the  datum  is  receiving 
determination,  such  organization  is  falling  apart  and  revealing  the 
universal  and  permanent  elements  which  may  be  incorporated  into  a 
fresh  reorganization.  The  real,  now  as  obstacle  to  the  furtherance  of 
former  organization,  now  as  point  of  departure  for  reorganization, 
betrays  the  common  or  universal  element  that  runs  through  the  pattern 
of  reality. 

The  judgment  then,  even  though  concerned  with  thought  and 
reality  as  specific  occurrence,  and  not  ‘at  large,’  or  per  se,  may  thus 
secure  such  universality  as  is  involved  in  the  make-up  of  reality  itself. 
Furthermore,  the  judgment  is  not  a  process  of  creation  out  of  nothing; 
it  is  not  a  ‘transmutation’  of  reality.  The  reconstructions  which  it 
effects  are  not  the  making  and  unmaking  of  reality  without  regard  to 
the  “stubborn  grain  in  things.”  Although  reality  is  never  externality 
and  objectivity  in  general,  yet  the  real  as  residuum  of  past  constructions 
is  there,  rigorously  to  set  the  limits  and  conditions  within  which  recon¬ 
structions  can  take  place.  Thus,  the  judgment  may  secure  such  per¬ 
manence  of  truth,  and  objective  validity  as  characterize  reality  itself. 

As  predicate  such  an  idea,  intimately  bound  up  with  the  existence 
of  the  object ;  as  subject  such  a  real,  permeated  to  the  core  with  ideality — 
and  the  fruit  of  the  judgment,  says  logic,  must  be  universality,  per¬ 
manence,  objectivity  of  truth.  But,  thought  is  “personal,”  suggests 
psychology : 

In  this  room — this  lecture-room,  say — there  are  a  multitude  of  thoughts, 
yours  and  mine,  some  of  which  cohere  mutually,  and  some  not.  They  are  as 
little  each-for-itself  and  reciprocally  independent  as  they  are  all-belonging- 

together.  They  are  neither . Whether  anywhere  in  the  room  there  be 

a  mere  thought,  we  have  no  means  of  ascertaining,  for  we  have  no  experience 
of  its  like.  The  only  states  of  consciousness  that  we  naturally  deal  with  are 
found  in  personal  consciousnesses,  minds,  selves,  concrete  particular  I’s  and 
you’s . It  seems  as  if  the  elementary  psychic  fact  were  not  thought,  or 


LOCUS  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGISTS  STANDPOINT 


51 


this  or  that  thought,  but  my  thought,  every  thought  being  owned . On  these 

terms  the  personal  self  might  be  treated  as  the  immediate  datum  in  psychology.* 

If  thought  is  thus  personal,  the  possession  of  the  individual  merely, 
what  boots  its  close  connection  with  the  object?  This  connection 
infects  the  object  with  subjectivity,  but  does  not  make  the  idea  objec¬ 
tively  valid.  And  this  is  a  fair  contention  from  the  psychologist’s 
standpoint,  although  his  discussion  of  thought  as  personal  is  not,  strictly 
speaking,  equivalent  to  an  account  of  it  as  ‘subjective.’  The  antithesis 
of  ‘my’  thought  versus  ‘your’  thought  is  as  purely  a  matter  of  objective 
distribution  as  a  division  of  property  into  mine  and  yours.  It  belongs 
to  this  or  that  psycho-physical  organism,  which  is  one  with  itself,  and 
different  from  all  others.  Psychology  takes  as  its  datum  a  self,  which, 
however  social  its  content,  is  insulated  as  an  existence  from  other  selves, 
and  from  an  external  environment.  The  idea  which  is  the  possession 
of  this  individual,  though  it  mark  the  break-up  of  habit  and  lead  to 
its  reconstruction,  that  is,  though  it  be  intimately  connected  with  the 
‘overt’  activity  of  the  organism,  yet  travels  within  the  bounds  of  a 
certain  fixed  center  of  responses,  initially  marked  off,  and  persistently 
integral  and  unitary.  The  idea  as  issuing  from  this  individual  can  get 
extra-individual  import  only  by  the  assumption  of  a  pre-established 
harmony  between  other  insulated  individuals  and  itself.  Logic  finds 
it  necessary  to  place  the  psychologist’s  interpretation  of  the  individual 
with  reference  to  a  wider  perspective.  Like  the  dualism  of  object  and 
idea,  the  individual  occurs  only  at  certain  times  and  is  then,  so  to  speak, 
an  eruption  into  existence  of  a  whole  system  of  relations.  No  response, 
no  idea,  is  merely  ‘  my  ’  reaction,  or  merely  ‘  my  ’  idea.  I  as  a  person,  as 
this  person,  and  not  that,  am  just  one  of  these  decisive  points  in  the 
growth  and  reconstruction  of  reality. 

By  way  of  summary,  we  may  say  that  for  psychology,  cognition  is 
an  inner  process  which  reflects  a  world  outside  of  it.  “Psychology,” 
says  Angell,  “professes  to  investigate  primarily  the  mere  facts  of  cogni¬ 
tion,  the  nature  of  the  knowledge  process  taken  at  its  face  value,”  i.e., 
a  “process  reflecting  in  some  manner  a  world  outside  itself.”"*  What¬ 
ever  investigation  psychology  may  see  fit  to  make  beyond  the  “mere 
facts  of  cognition”  taken  at  face  value,  it  seems  clear  that  it  must  do  so 
on  the  basis  of  a  representational  theory  of  knowledge,  which  though 

*  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  225-26. 

2  Angell,  “The  Relations  of  Structural  and  Functional  Psychology  to  Philosophy,” 
University  of  Chicago  Decennial  Publications,  First  Series,  Vol.  Ill,  Part  II,  p.  13  (page 
reference  is  to  monograph  reprint). 


52  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


unquestionably  consistent  with  its  own  premises  leads,  if  accepted  with¬ 
out  reinterpretation  by  logic,  to  all  the  baffling  contradictions  brought 
out  with  such  convincing  finality  in  the  Studies  in  Logical  Theory. 
Psychology  may  demonstrate  the  effectiveness  of  the  judgment  as  an 
instrument  of  adaptive  behavior,  nevertheless  the  adaptation  secured 
by  means  of  the  report  which  the  psychological  idea  gives  of  reality  is 
to  a  reality  which  is  unaffected  by  it.  Thought,  if  efficient  in  attaining 
knowledge,  is  so  by  way  of  learning  new  facts  about  a  reality  which  is 
entirely  independent  of  it.  The  judgment,  to  repeat,  is  a  psychical 
act  whose  reconstructions  occur  entirely  in  the  mind.  Logic,  on  the 
other  hand,  makes  of  the  judgment,  not  an  inner  act,  but  the  dissolution- 
resolution  process  by  which  reality  itself  is  active,  changes,  and  develops. 
The  psychologist  views  thought  at  its  point  of  widest  differentiation 
from  an  external  reality;  thought  as  a  constituent,  and  constitutive, 
part  of  a  single  reality  process  can  be  stated  only  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  logician’s  premises  and  technique. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  NATURE  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGIST’S  “PROCESSES” 

The  psychologist,  then,  cannot  project  his  standpoint  into  a  satis¬ 
factory  world-view.  As  has  been  indicated,  he  is  dependent  for  his 
material  upon  the  polarized  situation  in  which  reality  becomes  differen¬ 
tiated  into  two  conflicting  elements — elements  in  the  sense  that  they 
are  for  the  time  being  ultimate  and  irreducible,  each  to  each.  When 
such  episodic  ultimateness  and  irreducibility  are  universalized  into  a 
permanent  status,  there  result  the  abstractions,  idea  and  object.  Fur¬ 
ther,  when  the  elementary  character  of  these  two  aspects  is  not  kept 
strictly  within  the  limits  of  the  several  sciences  or  disciplines  (the 
physical  sciences,  on  the  one  hand,  and  psychology,  on  the  other)  for 
the  special  purpose  or  interest  of  which  the  abstractions  may  afford 
convenient  working-bases,  there  are  created  all  the  thought-reality 
antinomies  indigenous  to  a  representational  epistemology.  The  psy¬ 
chologist,  however,  is  undisturbed  by  these  antinomies  in  so  far  as  he 
consistently  translates  ‘external’  reality  into  states-of-consciousness 
equivalents,  for  the  duality  of  the  conflicting  elements  then  falls  within 
the  ‘mental  state.’  There  is  something  within  it  which  is  idea,  and 
something  which  is  object.  Reducing  the  original  reality-dilemma  to 
these  equivalences,  it  is  easy  to  ignore  the  process  of  reduction  by  which 
they  were  obtained,  and  consequently,  to  take  the  next  step  to  subjective 
idealism.  The  problematic  situation  thus  is  one  only  to  thought;  the 
obstacle  one  only  for  thought;  the  disruption  one  only  in  thought. 
Hence,  thought,  in  resolving  the  conflict,  in  healing  the  dualism,  heals 
only  a  schism  within  itself.  It  is  equally  possible  to  pass  from  an  ideal¬ 
ism  of  this  sort  to  naive  realism.  If  thought  can  be  thus  occupied  only 
with  its  own  discursive  activity,  the  object  remains  wholly  impervious 
to  thought’s  futile  industry. 

However,  this  is  neither  the  idealism  nor  the  realism  of  instrumen¬ 
talism,  which  insists  that  the  duality  of  elements  is  no  more  a  condition 
existing  merely  for  thought  than  the  unity  out  of  which  it  arises  is  one 
merely  for,  or  in,  or  to,  thought.  On  the  contrary,  the  realism  of 
instrumental  logic  is  stubborn  and  insistent.  The  unity  of  the  reality- 
process,  it  maintains,  is  not  one  of  which  the  individual  has  merely 
‘consciousness’  or  knowledge.  Rather  is  he  woven  warp  and  woof 


S3 


54  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


into  the  texture  and  pattern  of  the  reality  fabric,  and  his  awareness  of 
the  reality-unity  is  not  some  inner  experience  of  a  reality  whose  content 
he  may  know  but  never  be.  His  awareness  of  the  oneness  and  immediacy 
of  reality  is  the  aliveness  of  the  reality-process  in  and  to  itself.  So,  too, 
the  duality  of  elements  within  the  reality-process  is  part  and  parcel  of 
its  warm  and  intimate  existential  immediacy.  Indeed,  it  is  precisely 
the  existential  immediacy  of  both  aspects  which  constitutes  the  very 
reality-dilemma.^  Holding  these  elements  thus  co-ordinate  in  actuality 
and  immediacy,  instrumentalism  can  exhibit  its  realism  as  the  necessary 
complement  of  its  idealism  and,  vice  versa,  can  show  its  idealism  to  be 
the  indispensable  counterpart  of  its  realism. 

It  is  not  possible  for  psychology,  which  perforce  reduces  the  three- 
dimensional,  duality-in-unity  character  of  reality  to  the  linear  dimensions 
of  an  ‘inner  continuity,’  to  handle  the  dialectic  between  the  elements 
in  conflict  (idea  and  object)  as  a  process  of  reality-reconstruction- 
and-reconstitution.  This  the  psychologist  may  be  ready  to  admit  and 
yet  may  demur  at  the  consequence  which  seems  to  follow,  namely, 
that  psychology  cannot  discuss  thought  as  a  genuine  process  at  all. 
What  becomes  of  the  transitive  states,  the  onward-flowing  character 
of  the  stream,  the  process  of  association,  the  busy  thoroughfare  between 
idea  and  idea  in  the  judgment  process  ?  The  answer,  in  part  at  least, 
would  seem  to  be  that  the  transitive  states,  the  more  or  less  will-o’-the- 
wisp  affairs  which  elude  the  alert  introspection  of  the  psychologist,  are 
a  methodological  fiction.  There  are  no  connections  between  substan¬ 
tive  states,  for  such  states  are  abstractions,  and  connections  between 
them  cannot  be  made  by  inserting  a  series  of  other  states  which  move 
swiftly  by.  The  difficulty  is  not  that  of  catching  the  flitting,  tran¬ 
sitive  things  which,  within  our  grasp,  “melt  like  snowflakes  on  the 
river”;  the  so-called  transitive  states  are  the  psychologist’s  attempt 
to  translate  the  passage  from  integral  to  integrated  situation,  and  do 
not  mark  a  transition  from  idea  to  idea.  Further,  other  cognitive 
processes,  thinking  for  instance,  as  exemplified  in  the  association  of 
ideas,  must  be  denied  to  be  processes  in  the  sense  of  operating  among 
the  psychologist’s  ideas. 

Ideas,  we  pointed  out,  are  genuine  stages  in  the  judgment  moment 
(the  dissolution-resolution  process)  which  the  psychologist  arrests  and 
takes  from  their  respective  settings.  Nor  is  this  abstraction  of  the  idea 
from  its  setting  of  the  sort  to  wdiich  every  psychologist  calls  attention, 
namely,  the  dissection  out  of  a  larger  complex  of  consciousness.  The 
abstraction  referred  to  here  is  not  from  a  consciousness  complex,  but 

^  Cf.  chap.  iii. 


NATURE  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGISTS  ‘‘PROCESSES” 


55 


from  a  reality-situation  in  which  the  idea  occurs  as  a  genuine  phenome¬ 
non.  As  containing  within  themselves  the  reflection  of  a  certain  organi¬ 
zation  of  what  is  for  the  time  being  ‘external’  environment,  ideas  are 
complete  structural  units — for  psychology  the  substantive  states,  for 
logic  arrested  stages  in  the  judgment.  No  magic  can  set  up  organic 
relations  among  them ;  there  is  no  question  of  continuity  or  discontinuity 
between  them ;  each  is  unique  and  has  relationship  only  with  the  reality- 
situation  in  which  it  occurred.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  more 
genuine  relationship  between  the  abstracted  ‘objects’  than  between  the 
ideas — the  continuity  is  no  more  ‘external’  than  it  is  ‘internal.’  Were 
there  a  continuity  of  externality,  psychology  might  well  claim  to  secure 
a  continuity  of  internality  by  the  simple  process  of  representation  or 
reflection.  The  continuity,  however,  is  one  of  the  reality-process  itself, 
and  psychology  in  setting  up  a  continuity  between  ideas  has  a  somewhat 
extraordinary  task  on  its  hands.  The  externality  aspect  of  reality  the 
idea  may  report  through  representation,  but  since  the  continuity  of 
reality  is  not  located  in  its  externality,  psychology  can  only  supply  it 
at  first  hand,  and  this  it  does  by  vitalizing  ideas  into  working  relations 
with  each  other.  Thus  it  constitutes  them  a  reality-process  of  their 
own  order. 

Miinsterberg  affords  an  admirable,  because  extreme,  instance  of  this 
procedure  of  the  psychologist.  He  starts  out  by  making  the  idea  as  it  is 
for  the  psychologist,  not  only  an  abstraction,  as  it  is  held  to  be  from  the 
point  of  view  here  presented,  but  indeed,  an  artificial  construct ;  that  is, 
he  does  not  regard  the  idea  as  a  genuine  phenomenon  which  actually 
occurs,  and  which  the  psychologist  arrests  in  its  functioning,  but  looks 
upon  it  as  the  psychologist’s  artefact.  This  idea  is  never  “born”  in  the 
actual  thinking  process;  it  is  an  existence  which  never  occurs  as  such, 
but  is  the  result  wholly  of  the  psychologist’s  peculiar  occupation.^  This 
idea,  furthermore,  has  no  meaning  with  reference  to  a  world  of  reality 
values.  (This  position  differs  somewhat  from  that  of  Bradley  and  Taylor. 
Bradley  regards  the  idea,  as  psychology  deals  with  it,  as  a  natural  oc¬ 
currence,  but  since  it  is  a  mere  psychical  existence^  it  can,  at  best,  have 
only  symbolic  connection  with  a  world  of  logical  meanings.^  Taylor 
agrees  with  Miinsterberg  as  to  the  origin  of  the  idea,  that  is,  he  makes 
it  a  deliberate  construct  of  the  psychologist,  but  ultimately  he  gives 
it  a  symbolic  function  with  reference  to  a  world  of  reality  meanings.^ 
In  so  far  as  he  does  this,  he  illustrates  the  same  type  of  procedure  which 
we  charge  against  Miinsterberg.)  The  meaning  of  the  idea  is  merely, 

^  Munsterberg,  GrundzUge  der  Psychologic,  I,  163  f.  "  Bradley,  Logic,  pp.  i-io. 

3  Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  Book  IV,  chap,  i,  pp.  298-301. 


56  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


then,  the  fact  of  its  existence  in  the  stream  of  consciousness  which  the 
psychologist  studies;  it  has  a  place  in  that  stream,  certain  antecedents, 
certain  consequents,  and  beyond  this,  it  means  nothing.  However,  if 
these  ideas,  these  “psychical  existences,”  are  to  be  ascribed  entirely  to 
the  psychologist’s  enterprise,  we  are  the  more  surprised  to  find  them 
setting  up  in  business  for  themselves  and  constituting  a  bona-fide  pro¬ 
cess.  “  Psychologisch  bedeutet  das  Wissen,  das  sich  auf  die  Vorstellung 
stiitzt,  somit  zunachst  nur  gewisse  Einfliisse  der  Vorstellung  auf  den 
iibrigen  Bewusstseinsinhalt;  Associationen  und  Hemmungen  treten  ein, 
Symbole  und  Zeichen,  Worte  und  Schriftbilder  bedeuten  uns  mehr  als 
sie  sind,  well  sie  anderes  miterwecken . 

How  in  a  realm  of  abstractions  can  one  abstraction  have  “influence” 
upon  another?  Miinsterberg  says  that  these  ideas  do  not  leave  the 
level  of  their  own  plane  of  existence  to  connect  with  a  world  of  values 
beyond,  but  even  so,  can  they  enter  into  relationship  with  other  deni¬ 
zens  of  their  shadow  world?  If  they  can  and  do,  have  we  not  here 
an  actual  process,  a  genuine  occurrence,  and  have  we  not  given  the 
“psychologist’s”  idea  full  title  to  reality?  If  there  can  be  associations, 
inhibitions,  mutual  reference,  and  influence  among  these  ideas,  is  this 
not  a  genuine  thought-activity  of  some  kind  ?  Is  not  the  abstractness, 
rather  artificiality,  of  the  ideas  canceled  in  the  very  concreteness  of 
the  enterprise  among  themselves  ?  Then  we  are  caught  again  in  the 
traditional  unbroken  continuity  of  the  inner  stream.  But  what  a  thing 
of  shreds  and  patches,  what  a  motley  garb  of  reality  and  abstractions 
this  inner  continuity  must  be,  if  such  is  its  genesis! 

It  is  largely  through  the  category  of  association  that  the  stream- 
of-thought  conception  has  endured  so  long,  and  has  been  imported  into 
contexts  to  which  it  is  not  applicable.  Yet  it  is  fair  to  say  that  the 
doctrine  of  association,  as  the  psychologist  expounds  it,  is  still  far  from 
being  ‘crystal-clear.’  Through  its  agency  the  psychologist  secures  the 
integrity  of  the  stream,  for  he  thereby  links  thought  to  thought,  that 
is,  makes  of  ideas  a  closed  series  in  which  each  idea  conditions  the 
sequence  of  another.  The  law  of  association  binds  idea  to  idea,  fore 
-and  aft,  so  that  no  hiatus  is  suffered  to  occur  between  them.  Reading 
forward,  the  law  says  that  “whenever  two  images  or  ideas  have  been 
juxtaposed  in  the  mind,  there  is  a  tendency  when  one  recurs  for  the 
other  to  come  with  it.”^  Reading  backward,  it  states  that  no  idea  or 
image  may  at  any  moment  be  in  the  foreground  of  consciousness  unless 
it  is  connected  with  its  immediate  predecessor.^  Here,  then,  is  a  closed 

^  Miinsterberg,  op.  cit.,  p.  162  (italics  mine). 

2  Angell,  Psychology,  chap,  viii,  p.  206.  3  Ihid.,  p.  207. 


NATURE  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGISTS  PROCESSES'^ 


57 


circuit  of  mechanically  determined  sequences.  This  unbroken,  closed- 
from-behind  continuity  is  precisely  the  sort  of  thing  which  instru¬ 
mentalism  finds  so  unwieldy  and  useless.  The  psychologist,  moreover, 
is  not  unaware  of  the  difficulties  of  this  account,  even  as  more  imme¬ 
diately  applicable  within  the  field  of  psychology  itself,  and  offers  the 
very  significant  suggestion  that  association  occurs  not  among  ideas 
but  among  objects,  that  is,  he  refers  it  as  a  process  to  the  externality 
aspect  of  reality.^  Association  would,  accordingly,  be  a  methodological 
abstraction  or  device  whereby  the  psychologist  handles  ideas  from  a 
perspective  (the  introspective  viewpoint)  which  marshals  them  into  a 
swiftly  moving  procession.  Like  Berkeley  and  Hume,  however,  the 
modern  psychologist  shall  search  in  vain  for  a  genuine  bond  of  connection 
between  ideas.  Association  by  similarity,  the  type  of  so-called  ‘inter¬ 
nal”  association,  in  which  ideas  are  said  to  be  not  merely  successive, 
but  bound  to  each  other  by  a  core  of  inner  connection  (according  to 
the  second  aspect  of  the  law  of  association  all  association  of  ideas  betrays 
this  inner  nexus),  either  is  not  a  process  occurring  among  ideas,  or  it  is 
anything  but  the  selective,  adaptive,  projective  activity  which,  as  the 
basis  of  reasoning,  it  is  purported  to  be.  Similarity,  the  psychologist 
tells  us,  is  not  a  causal  principle  determining  the  sequence  of  ideas,* 
but  ideas  may  be  pronounced  similar  after  association,  operative  from 
behind  by  habit,  recency,  vividness,  etc.,  has  precipitated  just  this 
particular  sequence,  which  then,  in  an  ex  post  facto  manner,  may  be 
adjudged  ‘similar’  to  its  predecessor.  Reasoning  as  the  reconstructive 
activity  which  goes  forth  in  search  of  the  similar,  i.e.,  which  seeks  to 
find  a  common  principle  of  organization,  or  a  ‘  middle  term  ’  between  two 
situations  that  resist  each  other  in  their  mutual  concreteness — this  is 
not  a  process  occurring  among  ideas,  or  else  it  is  a  process  which  must 
forfeit  all  claim  to  projective  control  over  its  own  sequences,  i.e.,  it 
is  a  mechanical  and  not  a  teleological  procedure. 

If  association  cannot  be  pressed  into  service  to  guarantee  a  vital 
process-connection  between  ideas,  no  more  can  the  judgment  combine 
ideas  into  real  unions.  As  registering  a  definite  status  quo  of  the  reality- 
dilemma  when  they  are  arrested  in  their  functioning,  they  are  complete 
structural  units.  Why  should  they  be  joined  together?  Into  what 
could  they  be  synthesized — a  fresh  abstraction?  What  the  need  of 
analysis  and  how  can  they  be  analyzed  ?  What  the  number,  and  where 
the  cleavage  of  parts  in  a  completely  unitary  content,  such  as  the 
psychologist  assures  us  any  idea  must  really  be  ?  If  ideas  are  the  stuff 
which  the  judgment  must  manipulate,  it  is  small  wonder  that  the  logician 

^  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  604.  *  Ibid.,  p.  591. 


58  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


is  torn  between  deciding  whether  the  process  is  one  of  analysis  or  of 
synthesis.  On  this  basis,  the  problem  of  the  synthetic  judgment  offers 
no  more  difficulties  than  does  that  of  the  analytical  judgment.  The 
psychologist,  indeed,  has  scarcely  disentangled  himself  from  the  intri¬ 
cacies  of  the  mystery  of  how  “psychological  analysis”  of  a  unitary 
mental  content  is  possible.  James,  for  instance,  reduces  all  analysis 
of  presentations  or  ideas  to  the  analysis  of  objective  facts  which  are 
known  by  them.^  On  the  level  of  ideas,  there  is  no  answer  as  to  whether 
the  judgment  is  analytic  or  synthetic,  and  Kant’s  searching  scrutiny 
of  the  synthetic  judgment  is  no  more  pertinent  than  the  query:  “How 
are  analytical  judgments  possible?” 

The  psychologist’s  ‘higher  cognitive’  processes,  i.e.,  all  operations 
which  seem  to  have  self-sustained  continuity  as  they  ply  between  idea 
and  idea,  belong  to  the  representative  phase  of  the  judgment  situation. 
But  this  representative  aspect  occurs  within  definite  limits;  it  does  not 
go  on  unceasingly,  and  is  itself  nothing  more  than  the  search  for  mutually 
relevant  responses  and  stimuli,  or  datum  and  ideatum,  or  subject  and 
predicate.^  Those  which  are  found  relevant  to  the  same  end  or  purpose 
are  thereby  said  to  be  associated  by  similarity.  Such  association  does 
not  continue  indefinitely,  but  is  to  be  located  wholly  within  the  region  of 
search  for  appropriate  subjects  or  predicates.  There  may  be  a  somewhat 
extended  rehearsing  of  possibilities  before  the  representative  function 
is  complete,  and  the  so-called  association  process  may  be  said  to  be 
coincident  with  this  rehearsal.  Association  appears,  then,  to  be  a  con¬ 
venient  method  for  viewing  ideas  abstracted  from  the  situations  in 
which  they  function,  and  for  regarding  them  as  existences  which  sustain 
relations  to  each  other.  Nevertheless,  the  logician  has  found  it  difficult 
to  escape  from  the  bondage  of  the  doctrine  of  association  and  its  near 
of  kin.  It  seems  a  fact  so  easily  verifiable  through  introspection  that 
it  has  been  difficult  to  recognize  that  it  is  only  from  the  introspective 
point  of  view  that  thought  takes  on  this  character.  The  custom  of  thus 
viewing  thought  has  grown  almost  into  the  pertinacity  and  obstinacy  of 
an  instinct,  and  the  tenacity  of  its  hold  makes  it  well-nigh  impossible  to 
venture  far  enough  from  the  conception  of  thinking  as  a  self-feeding,  self- 
perpetuating  mechanism,  living  on  its  own  meanings  and  making  its  own 
relations,  to  give  open-minded  hospitality  to  the  contention  that  thought 
proceeds  from,  and  ends  in,  a  concrete  reality-situation,  where,  however, 
it  is  not  spontaneously  generated,  nor  does  it  “commit  suicide,”  but  it 
is  reborn,  rather,  into  a  new  reality-status. 

^  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  chap,  xiii,  especially  p.  523,  footnote. 

“  Cf.  chap.  iii. 


CHAPTER  V 

TYPICAL  STATEMENTS  OF  THE  RELATIONSHIP 

In  the  earlier  form  of  the  problem  in  which  interest  was  directed 
more  specifically  to  the  two  disciplines  in  question,  the  discussion  of  the 
relation  of  psychology  to  logic  took  on  the  guise  of  a  debate  as  to  which 
was  the  more  comprehensive  of  the  two.  The  argument  savors  of  a 
scholastic  exercise  in  determining  the  intension  and  extension  of  concepts, 
and  runs  in  a  circle  of  futile  reiteration  because  no  common  standard 
or  criterion  is  suggested  with  reference  to  which  the  greater  or  lesser 
generality  may  be  measured.  The  argument,  in  schematic  form,  has 
been  that  psychology  as  the  science  of  mind  includes  the  study  of  all 
the  conscious  processes,  whereas  logic  deals  with  only  one  portion  of 
the  field,  and  that  only  under  the  aspect  of  correct  or  incorrect  reasoning. 
Thus  logic  is  the  less  comprehensive  of  the  two  and  must  surrender  its 
independence,  for  it  is  related  to  psychology  as  part  to  the  whole.  Logic 
retorts  that  it  is  the  most  general  of  all  sciences ;  that  it  formulates  laws 
which  are  prescriptive  universally,  and  treats  of  those  forms  and  prin¬ 
ciples  of  thought  which  must  be  employed  in  every  branch  of  knowledge. 
Hence  psychology,  in  gathering  its  data,  classifying,  systematizing,  and 
drawing  conclusions  about  them,  must  use  the  logical  forms  which  are 
fundamental  to, all  thought.  The  psychologist  as  reasoner,  then,  con¬ 
stitutes  only  one  instance  of  the  procedure  which  the  logician  investi¬ 
gates.  In  this  sense  logic  maintains  that  it  is  not  dependent  upon  the 
field  mapped  out  by  the  psychologist,  and  that  as  the  methodology  of 
all  the  sciences  it  may  be  said  to  be  wider  and  not  narrower  in  scope 
than  psychology.  The  psychologist  replies  that  the  logician  must  use 
as  the  raw  stuff  of  his  investigation  the  elements  which  the  psychologist 
provides  as  constituents  of  the  reasoning  process.  Moreover,  psychology 
can,  with  its  introspective  gaze,  sweep  the  whole  horizon,  and  include 
in  the  survey  the  very  procedure  of  the  logician  as  a  mental  process 
falling  within  the  psychological  domain.  Logic  is  thus  a  psychological 
discipline.  The  following  statement  of  Lipps  expresses  the  general 
spirit  of  this  view:  “Die  Logik  ist  eine  psychologische  Dizciplin,  so 
gewiss  das  Erkennen  nur  in  der  Psyche  vorkommt  und  das  Denken,  das 
in  ihm  sich  vollendet,  ein  psychisches  Geschehen  ist.”' 

*  Lipps,  Grundziige  der  Logik,  pp.  1-2. 

59 


6o  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


If  all  thinking  or  knowing  is  a  ‘‘psychical”  process  which  takes 
place  within  the  inner  sanctum  of  the  psyche,  the  settlement  of  this 
dispute  would  indeed  be  an  incomparably  more  difficult  feat  than  that 
which  the  serpent  undertakes  in  attempting  to  swallow  its  tail.  Fur¬ 
thermore,  this  claim  of  psychology  overreaches  itself,  since,  if  consistently 
held  to,  not  only  all  so-called  mental  sciences,  but  all  physical  sciences 
too,  may  be  included  in  psychology.  Consonant  with  this  viewpoint, 
that  is,  existence  of  any  kind  is  first  of  all  only  for  consciousness,  then 
in  consciousness,  and  psychology,  in  the  end,  deals  with  all  existence, 
and  issues  naturally  and  simply  in  subjective  idealism.  In  practice, 
however,  the  psychologists  who  have  claimed  logic  to  be  a  branch  of 
psychology  have  usually  been  content  with  a  division  of  labor,  concern¬ 
ing  themselves  generally  with  the  processes  of  cognition,  and  leaving 
to  logic  the  investigation  of  the  products  of  reasoning  and  their  inter¬ 
relations. 

Another  turn  of  the  argument  which  had  vogue  in  connection  with 
the  part-whole  controversy  was  that  which  designated  logic  as  an  art 
and  psychology  as  a  science.  Logic,  on  this  view,  formulates  rules 
for  the  correct  procedure  of  reason,  whereas  psychology  studies  the  essen¬ 
tial  nature  of  the  reasoning  process.  When  this  separation  between 
art  and  science  is  made,  logic  retorts  pertinently  that  it  is  rather  the 
science  of  an  art,  or  in  the  words  of  Locke,  “  God  has  not  been  so  sparing 
to  men  as  to  make  them  barely  two-legged  animals  and  left  it  to  Aris¬ 
totle  to  make  them  rational.”  Logic,  that  is,  meets  this  issue  by 
showing  that  it  depends  upon  the  previous  activity  of  the  knowing 
process,  and  is  the  science  of  the  laws  of  that  activity;  that  only  in 
so  far  as  it  is  a  science  does  it  make  possible  a  conscious  application  of 
these  laws.  So  far,  then,  as  the  art-science  distinction  is  concerned, 
logic  denies  that  it  is  less  inclusive  than  psychology. 

To  make  one  science  dependent  upon  another  by  way  of  a  part-to- 
whole  relation  is  to  make  neither  independent;  either  they  form  one 
homogeneous  whole  and  are  indistinguishable,  or  each  must  have  dis¬ 
tinctive  characteristics.  It  is  a  comparatively  recent  interpretation' 
which,  once  establishing  the  dependence  of  logic  upon  psychology,  seeks 
to  obliterate  all  theoretical  distinctions  between  the  two.  If  they  are 
held  to  be  distinguishable,  however,  the  question  has  sooner  or  later  to 
be  faced  as  to  what  the  nature  of  this  part-to-whole  relationship  is.  Is 
it  a  difference  in  method,  material,  standpoint?  (From  the  point  of 
view  of  this  paper  there  is  no  such  part-to-whole  continuity  but  the 
locus  of  the  psychologist’s  standpoint  falls  within  that  of  the  “logical 
situation.”  Cf.  chap,  iii.) 


TYPICAL  STATEMENTS  OF  THE  RELATIONSHIP 


6i 


The  attempt  to  determine  the  relationship  of  logic  to  psychology  on 
the  ground  of  relative  comprehensiveness,  though  proper  to  the  tradi¬ 
tional  opening  of  the  argument,  was  usually  followed  by  the  more 
fruitful  discussions  of  the  respective  aims  and  functions  of  the  two 
disciplines.  Logic  and  psychology,  as  theory  or  science,  appear  equally 
to  be  concerned  with  reflection  upon  thought.  James  says:  “A  mind 
which  has  become  conscious  of  its  own  cognitive  function  plays  what 
wx  call  the  psychologist  upon  it.”^  He  suggests  further  that  “if  to 
have  feelings  or  thoughts  in  their  immediacy  were  enough,  babies  in 
their  cradles  would  be  psychologists,  and  infallible  ones.”^  But  logic, 
also,  appears  to  be  “conscious  of  its  own  cognitive  function,”  and  the 
babe  in  his  cradle  who  has  a  certain  “natural”  logic,  or  logica  utens, 
as  the  schoolmen  might  call  it,  is  no  better  logician  than  psychologist. 
The  problem,  then,  is  to  discover  how  the  reflection  which  logic  turns 
upon  thought  differs  from  the  introspective  procedure  of  psychology, 
granting,  for  the  time  being,  the  assumption  that  psychology  and  logic 
examine  the  same  thought- pro  cesses.  Palagyi  offers  what  he  terms  a 
“new  proof”  of  the  distinction  between  logic  and  psychology  based  on 
this  assumption  of  the  coincidence  of  material.  He  says  that  psy¬ 
chology  hopes  from  its  investigation  of,  or  reflection  upon,  thought 
(he  deprecates  the  use  of  the  word  introspection  as  a  misleading  meta¬ 
phor)  to  secure  nothing  more  than  an  accurate  report  of  the  psychical 
or  mental  processes.  He  points  out  that  the  psychologist  complains 
that  these  processes  change  under  such  reflection  or  observation,  whereas 
what  he  desires  is  a  faithful  copy  or  reinstatement  of  them:  “Fur  diesen 
letzteren  namlich  ist  es  von  grdsster  Wichtigkeit,  dass  der  psychische 
Vorgang,  auf  den  er  reflektiert,  durch  diese  Reflexion  auf  denselben, 
moglichst  unverandert  bleibe.  Ist  es  ja  eine  ewige  Klage  der  Psy- 
chologen,  dass  durch  das  Belauschen  der  psychischen  Vorgange,  wie 
etwa  der  Freude,  der  Trauer,  etc.,  diese  selbst  irgendwelche  Veranderung 
erleiden.”^ 

The  logician,  on  the  other  hand,  reflects  upon  thought  in  order  to 
effect  changes  in  it — to  make  it  more  efficient:  “Im  vollen  Gegensatz 
zum  Psychologen  reflektiert  der  Logiker  auf  die  Erkenntnissthatigkeit 
nur  deshalb,  weil  er  dieselbe  modifizieren,  d.h.  lautern,  kraftigen, 
verteifen,  sagen  wir  kurz;  potenzieren  will.”"* 

It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  determine  from  Palagyi’s  exposition 
whether  he  means  that,  in  the  case  of  logic,  reflection  upon  thought  or 

^  James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  I,  272. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  189. 

3  Paldgyi,  Die  Streit  der  Formalisten,  p.  68. 


4  Ibid.,  p.  69. 


62  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


thinking  is  for  the  purpose  of  making  the  thinking  process  a  more  efficient 
tool  for  knowledge  generally,  or  whether  he  means  that  the  logician 
“turns  back”  upon  thought  for  the  purpose  of  getting,  upon  a  specific 
occasion,  “more  certain,”  “clearer,”  and  “more  potent”  knowledge. 
On  the  whole  he  seems  to  have  in  mind  the  former.  To  this  the  psy¬ 
chologist  may  well  make  answer  that  psychology  hopes  ultimately 
by  the  study  of  the  thinking  process  to  point  out  ways  for  the  better 
development  of  mind  and  control  of  thought,  making  it  a  surer,  more 
effective  instrument  of  knowledge. 

There  is  a  distinction  worth  maintaining  in  the  conception  of  logic 
as  a  study  of  thought  for  the  purpose  of  more  effective  control.  The 
distinction,  however,  is  rather  different  from  that  which  the  above 
passages  indicate,  for  they  reveal  the  traditional  ‘inner-process’  inter¬ 
pretation  of  thought;  it  is  this  thinking  process  which  as  such,  by  reflec¬ 
tion  upon  itself,  is  to  be  improved.  According  to  Dewey,  thought  is 
called  forth  only  upon  a  specific  occasion  in  the  event  of  a  specific 
problem  or  need.^  It  is  only  when  thought  is  continually  baffled  in  its 
attempt  to  effect  a  reconstruction,  only  as  it  is  held  apart  from  pass¬ 
ing  into  more  direct  experience,  that  thought  itself  is  made  an  object. 
It  is  at  this  moment  that  the  logician  is  born.  His  purpose  is  to  dis¬ 
cover  why  thought  fails  of  its  accomplishment,  or  why  reconstruction 
of  the  dilemma-situation  fails  to  take  place,  but  in  studying  thought 
he  does  not  make  of  it  an  inner  process.  Rather,  he  studies  it  always 
as  the  problematical  aspect  of  a  situation.  It  is  with  reference  to  the 
whole  situation  that  some  content  or  element  is  to  be  set  aside  as  merely 
“psychical,”  and  some  regarded  as  objective.^  In  this  sense,  the  logician 
may  discover  the  marks  of  the  ‘psychical,’  or  merely  subjective,  and 
therefore  determine  what  in  this  particular  instance  may  be  set  aside 
or  eliminated  as  such.  Thus  the  logician  returns  to  his  immediate 
problem  with  enriched  and  more  effective  control,  but  the  control  is 
not  of  a  mere  thinking  process — it  is  not  the  control  of  thought  as  mere 
thought.  The  logician  or  theorist  does  on  a  larger  scale  what  the 
occasional  thinker  does  whenever,  baffled  in  his  attempt  to  secure  the 
result  he  desired,  he  ‘turns  back’  to  examine  his  procedure.  Nor  is 
the  reflection  of  the  logician  any  more  mediate.  Once  again,  he  is  not 
reflecting  upon  thought  as  an  inner  process,  but  is  examining  it  as  an 
immediate  reality-activity.  He  is  not  introspecting  as  logician. 

^  Dewey,  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  chap.  ii. 

2  Dewey,  Studies  of  Logical  Theory,  p.  54,  note.  Cf.  also  Mead,  “The  Definition 
of  the  Psychical,”  University  of  Chicago  Decennial  Publications ,  First  Series,  Vol.  Ill, 
Part  II,  especially  pp.  28-29  (page  reference  is  to  monograph  reprint). 


TYPICAL  STATEMENTS  OF  THE  RELATIONSHIP 


63 


There  is  not  a  little  ambiguity  in  the  connotation  of  the  word  ‘intro¬ 
spection.’  In  popular  usage,  anyone  who  thinks,  meditates,  deliberates, 
etc.,  is  said  to  be  ‘ introspective.’  But  even  the  psychologist  who  uses  the 
term  widely  would  hardly  admit  this  usage;  for  instance,  he  would  not 
call  memory  introspection.  Yet  so  strongly  is  the  introspective  squint 
developed,  that  we  apply  the  term  to  anything  connected  in  any  way 
with  a  thought-activity,  and  it  is  difficult  to  conceive  of  any  occupation 
or  reflection  upon  thought  which  is  not  introspective.  However,  intro¬ 
spection  is  not  a  method  of  dealing  with  thought,  it  is  a  standpoint, 
and  its  assumption  results  in  characteristic  changes  in  the  material 
thus  viewed.  The  psychologist,  however,  first  defines  his  attitude  as 
introspective,  and  then  speaks  of  introspection  as  a  method,  indeed, 
one  method  among  several  other  methods.  The  methods  of  psychology 
are  not  the  distinctive  features  of  the  science.  It  is  distinguished  rather 
by  its  standpoint.  If,  under  cover  of  retaining  introspection  merely 
as  one  of  its  methods,  it  shifts  its  standpoint  from  that  of  the  spectator 
of  a  process  which  “mediates  and  reflects  an  outer  world,”  there  is  of 
course  no  limit  to  the  transformation  it  may  undergo.  Logic,  in  reflect¬ 
ing  upon  the  cognitive  process,  may  or  may  not  adopt  the  introspective 
standpoint  of  the  psychologist.  As  shown  in  a  previous  chapter,  it  is 
the  intellectualistic  type  of  logic,  whose  basal  assumption  is  the  repre¬ 
sentative  function  of  thought,  which  holds  to  the  psychologist’s  intro¬ 
spective  standpoint  to  the  bitter  end  of  skepticism.^  The  logician  who 
views  thought  and  reality  as  reciprocally  determinative  does  not  adopt 
the  introspective  point  of  view.  For  him  the  line  between  thought  and 
reality  is  a  problematic,  a  shifting  one.  He  cannot  abstract  it  bodily 
from  its  context  and  look  at  it  as  does  the  psychologist  his  inner  process. 
It  is  part  of  his  problem,  as  thinker,  to  find  out  what  in  the  situation 
is  the  so-called  thought  side  and  what  the  reality  aspect.  Thinking, 
to  repeat,  is  for  the  logician  a  process  of  reality-in-manipulation,  the 
medium  through  which  reality  is  in  process  of  development.  When 
he  introspects,  becomes  a  spectator  of,  that  is,  considers  this  or  that 
aspect  of  the  situation  as  inner,  he  turns  psychologist. 

A  prevalent  view  as  to  the  relation  of  psychology  to  logic  is  that 
which  regards  psychology  as  a  positive  and  logic  as  a  normative  science. 
This  is  common  to  so  many  schools  of  logic  and  to  such  various  types 
of  psychology  that  citations  may  be  made  without  direct  reference  to 
the  contexts  in  which  they  occur.  Stout  makes  the  distinction  as  follows : 

Logic  is  a  normative  science;  it  is  preoccupied  with  the  distinction  between 
truth  and  error.  It  has  to  show  how  thought  must  proceed  to  represent  its 

*  Cf.  chap.  hi. 


64  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


object  correctly.  Psychology,  on  the  contrary,  deals  with  laws  that  govern 
the  cognitive  process  as  it  actually  takes  place.  The  principles  which  it  lays 
down  account  equally  for  correct  and  incorrect  thinking.^ 

Stratton’s  account  is  similar  and  somewhat  more  explicit: 

Logic  and  psychology  deal  with  the  same  material  within  certain  limits. 
But  in  working  up  the  materials  there  is  in  each  one  of  these  sciences  a  different 

end  in  view  and  a  different  mode  of  procedure . Psychology  is  an  effort 

to  state  the  natural  causes  of  various  mental  occurrences . The  main 

question  is  entirely  regarding  matters  of  fact.  What  is  the  actual  causal 
order  or  connection  in  mental  life  ? 

Logic  is  not  an  attempt  to  search  for  the  causes  of  mental  occurrences 
but  an  attempt  to  develop  a  principle  of  criticism.  In  logic  we  assume  the 
facts  of  reasoning,  and  proceed  not  to  explain,  in  a  scientific  sense,  but  to  set 
forth  the  abstract  marks  which  distinguish  the  consistent  from  the  inconsistent. 
....  In  logic  we  do  not  ask  what  the  causes  are  which  actually  produce 
conclusions;  nor  as  to  what  various  influences  are  that  give  some  mental 
facts  one  character  and  to  others  another . 

The  two  sciences  thus  present  different  and  distinct  standards  of  worth. 
For  logic  those  combinations  are  good,  the  parts  of  which  are  related  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  what  we  call  logical  norms.  For  psychology  those  combinations  are 
good,  the  parts  of  which  are  causally  connected.  The  whole  machinery  of 
psychology  is  contrived  for  the  purpose  of  explanation,  while  the  aim  of  logic 
is  to  present  a  critical  canon.^ 

The  above  citations  make  emphatic  that  the  function  of  logic  is  to 
supply  a  norm  or  criterion  for  correct  reasoning.  This  norm,  however, 
is  not  to  be  merely  a  standard  by  which  to  measure  thought,  but  is 
to  operate  as  a  control  over  thought.  Sigwart  says: 

Since,  then,  actual  Thought  can  and  does  miss  its  aim,  we  have  need  of 
a  discipline  which  shall  teach  us  to  avoid  error  and  dispute,  and  to  conduct 
Thought  in  such  a  manner  that  the  judgments  may  be  true — that  is,  necessary 
and  certain — that  is,  accompanied  by  a  consciousness  of  their  necessity,  and 
therefore  universally  valid. 

Reference  to  this  aim  distinguishes  the  logical  from  the  psychological 
treatment  of  Thought.  The  latter  is  concerned  with  the  knowledge  of  Thought 
as  it  actually  is,  and  hence  seeks  the  laws  according  to  which,  under  certain 
conditions,  a  certain  thought  appears  in  just  one  way  and  no  other.  Its  task 
is  to  explain  all  actual  Thought  according  to  the  general  laws  of  psychical 
activity,  and  as  arising  from  the  particular  conditions  of  the  individual  instance, 
thus  dealing  with  all  Thought  alike,  whether  erroneous  and  disputable,  or  true 

^  Stout,  Manual  of  Psychology,  p.  3. 

^  Stratton,  Psychological  Review,  III,  313,  314-20. 


TYPICAL  STATEMENTS  OF  THE  RELATIONSHIP  65 

and  generally  accepted.  The  antithesis  of  the  true  and  the  false  is  no  more  a 
psychological  one  than  is  the  antithesis  of  good  and  bad  in  human  action.^ 

Lotze  presents  the  normative-positive  distinction  in  the  form  of  an 
antithesis  between  thought  as  a  mechanism  and  thought  as  controlled 
and  affected  by  logical  norms. 

We  may  suppose  the  existence  of  all  of  these  things,  of  perceptions,  ideas, 
and  their  connections  according  to  the  laws  of  a  psychical  mechanism,  but 
logic  only  begins  with  a  conviction  that  the  matter  cannot  end  here;  the 
conviction  that  between  the  combination  of  ideas,  however  they  may  have 
originated,  there  is  a  difference  of  truth  and  untruth,  and  that  there  are  forms 
to  which  the  combinations  ought  to  answer  and  laws  which  they  ought  to  obey.^ 

Trenchant  criticism  of  this  normative-positive  distinction  is  not 
lacking.  Mackenzie  gives  tersely  the  main  trend  of  the  criticism. 

Logic  is  said  to  be  concerned  with  correct  thinking;  but  there  is  a  very 
true  sense  in  which  it  may  be  held  that  incorrect  thinking  is  not  thought; 
so  that,  from  this  point  of  view.  Logic  may  be  said  to  be  concerned  with  the 

principles  of  thought  as  thought . It  [the  distinction  between  positive 

and  normative  sciences]  is  one  of  those  convenient  distinctions  (like  that 
between  sense  and  thought,  knowing  and  willing,  matter  and  spirit,  etc.)  which 
require  to  be  drawn  at  the  outset,  but  which  may  be  gradually  superseded. 3 

In  similar  vein  Mellone  says: 

It  is  usually  said  that  Logic  is  a  regulative  or  normative  science,  showing 
how  we  “ought”  to  reason;  it  treats  of  the  “ideal,”  while  Psychology  treats 
of  the  “actual,”  showing  how  we  do  reason.  This  distinction  seems  to  me 
worse  than  useless;  it  obscures  the  whole  matter  by  introducing  the  compli¬ 
cated  metaphysical  problem  of  what  is  the  true  relation  and  contrast  between 
the  ideal  and  the  actual,  the  “ ought  ”  and  the  “ is.”  In  the  first  place,  we  must 
ask,  what  exactly  is  meant  by  saying  that  Logic  shows  us  how  we  ought  to 
reason.  Surely  that  it  shows  us  what  the  true  nature  of  reasoning  w  ....  it 
shows  us  the  essential  differentia,  which  is  simply  the  nature  of  the  process 
itself.  So  far  as  any  process  of  thought  is  fallacious  or  false  reasoning,  it  is 
not  reasoning;  its  limbo  must  be  more  or  less  non-rational  in  character,  being 
determined  by  the  force  of  feeling,  of  custom  or  habit,  or  “authority,”  or  other 
processes  which  it  is  the  business  of  psychology  to  investigate.  Unless,  then, 
it  can  be  denied  that  reasoning  is  an  actual  process  of  the  mind,  we  must  admit 
that  it  is  the  business  of  Psychology  to  show  us  what  reasoning  is,  since  Psy¬ 
chology  has  to  deal  with  the  mental  processes.^ 

^  Sigwart,  Logic,  p.  9. 

2  Lotze,  Logic,  p.  10. 

3  Mackenzie,  Outline  of  Ethics,  p.  20. 

4  Mellone,  Philosophical  Criticism  and  Construction,  p.  41. 


66  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


Lipps,  too,  shows  the  coincidence  of  the  positive  with  the  normative 
aspect  of  science: 

Die  Frage,  was  man  thun  solle,  ist  immer  zuriickfuhrbar  auf  die  Frage, 
was  man  thun  miisse,  wenn  ein  bestimmtes  Ziel  erreicht  werden  solle;  und 
diese  Frage  wiederum  ist  gleichbedeutend  mit  der  Frage,  wie  das  Ziel  that- 
sachlich  erreicht  werde.^ 

Obviously  these  quotations  represent  somewhat  different  viewpoints 
as  to  the  nature  of  psychology  and  logic,  and  doubtless  the  sharpness 
of  the  antithesis  would  be  lessened  not  a  little  if  full  justice  were  done 
to  the  contexts  of  the  positions  represented.  Yet,  selecting  two  writers 
whose  positions  show  more  points  of  agreement  than  of  difference,  we 
find  the  distinction  held  by  one  and  repudiated  by  the  other.  Schiller 
maintains  that  it  is  practically  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  intimacy 
of  the  relationship  between  logic  and  psychology,  that  they  are  “per¬ 
fectly  inseparable”  yet  “perfectly  distinct.” 

As  it  is,  the  natural  process  has  to  be  regulated  and  controlled,  and  so 
falls  a  prey  to  two  sciences.  The  same  cognitive  values  occur  twice  over, 
first  in  Psychology  as  so  many  facts,  then  in  Logic,  as  subjects  for  critical 
evaluation.  Nor  is  it  difficult  to  understand  how  two  sciences  can  work  over 
the  same  ground:  they  cultivate  it  with  a  different  purpose,  and  so  raise 
different  crops . 

It  is  manifest,  moreover,  that  the  two  sciences  must  work  together  hand 
in  glove.  Logic  requires  trustworthy  descriptions  of  cognitive  happenings 
before  it  can  evaluate  them  with  safety;  for  these  it  should  be  able  to  rely 
on  the  co-operation  of  Psychology.  In  other  words,  the  collection  and  prepa¬ 
ration  of  the  material  which  the  logician  proposes  to  use  is  essentially  a  psy¬ 
chological  function,  alike  whether  it  is  performed  by  a  psychologist  who  bears 
in  mind  the  need  of  Logic  and  the  needs  of  Logic,  or  whether  the  logician  is 
enough  of  a  psychologist  to  do  it  himself.  In  the  latter  case  he  resembles  a 
painter  who,  like  those  of  old,  makes  and  mixes  his  own  colors;  the  logician, 
on  the  other  hand  who  proposes  to  dispense  with  the  aid  of  Psychology  is 
like  a  painter  who  will  not  use  anything  so  gross  as  colors  wherewithal  to  paint 
his  ‘  ideal  ’  pictures.^ 

Psychology,  however,  like  the  Little  Red  Hen,  refuses  to  prepare 
the  flour  and  bake  the  bread  and  get  none  of  the  substantial  benefit. 
Angell  says: 

If  psychology  is  permitted  to  discuss  function  at  all — and  we  saw  that 
without  being  arbitrarily  truncated  it  cannot  avoid  so  doing — the  truth  or 

*  Lipps,  Logik,  pp.  1-2. 

^  Schiller,  Studies  in  Humanism,  pp.  78-79. 


TYPICAL  STATEMENTS  OF  THE  RELATIONSHIP 


67 


falsehood  of  the  cognitive  processes  cannot  be  a  matter  alien  to  its  boundaries, 
because  such  truth  and  falsehood  are  simply  impressive  names  for  relatively 
complete  (i.e.,  successful)  operations  and  relatively  incomplete  (i.e.,  unsuccess¬ 
ful)  operations  of  adaptation.^ 

It  is  apparent  that  the  normative-positive  distinction  is  at  best  a* 
difficult  one.  The  problem  at  this  level  of  what  thought  actually  does 
versus  what  thought  ought  to  do  resolves  itself  into  a  question  as  to 
whether  thought  can  avail  itself  of  the  prescriptions  which  logic  makes. 
If  logic  can  set  up  a  norm  which  thought  ought  to  follow  in  order  to 
insure  consistency  or  truth,  and  thought  can  thus  be  guided  and  regu¬ 
lated,  then  does  not  this  very  procedure,  as  norm-directed  and  norm- 
obeying,  constitute  a  “natural,”  or  “actual,”  or  “factual”  procedure? 
That  is,  must  not  psychology  describe  and  explain  this  very  peculiarity 
of  thought’s  behavior?  Now  if  psychology  shows  thought  to  be  sub¬ 
ject  to  control  or  direction  through  norms,  it  must  be  ready  to  discuss 
fully  the  nature  of  the  norm.  It  must  be  able  without  leaving  its  own 
field  (i)  to  supply  a  norm,  (2)  to  show  that  the  norm  can  actually 
operate  as  an  end  at  which  thought  aims,  that  is,  that  it  can  have  con¬ 
trol  or  regulative  power,  and  (3)  that  it  can  be  used  as  a  standard  whereby 
to  determine  the  truth  or  falsity  of  the  thought-process.  If  it  can  do 
this,  it  has  gone  far  toward  making  good  its  claim  that  psychology  and 
logic  are  one. 

Taking  up  the  question  of  the  nature  of  the  norm  which  psychology 
can  erect,  we  find  that  it  is  a  norm  for  correct  thinking — thinking  taken 
in  the  sense  of  an  inner  activity  with  certain  elements,  characteristics, 
and  laws  of  its  own  procedure.  Thought  is  from  the  psychologist’s 
standpoint,  as  we  have  frequently  pointed  out,  legitimately  a  stream, 
a  continuity,  an  uninterrupted  sequence.  From  the  standpoint  of 
introspection,  each  portion  of  the  stream  is  determined  as  psychical 
event  or  existence.  Whatever  psychology  may  say  descriptively,  the 
type  of  explanation  used  by  the  psychology  which  allies  itself  to  natural 
science  is  a  mechanistic  one,  which  regards  each  psychical  event  as  a 
resultant  of  previous  processes  or  causes.  The  problem,  then,  which 
psychology  has  on  its  hands  is  to  show  how  a  norm  could  in  any  way  act 
as  end  or  aim  for  this  process,  how  it  could  interrupt  the  closed  series, 
deflect,  control  it.  The  problem  of  the  control  of  thought  has  indeed 
been  long  a  stumbling-block  to  logic  just  because  it  has  accepted 

I  “The  Relations  of  Structural  and  Functional  Psychology  to  Philosophy,”  Uni¬ 
versity  of  Chicago  Decennial  Publications,  First  Series,  Vol.  Ill,  Part  II,  p.  13  (page 
reference  is  to  monograph  reprint). 


68  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


psychology’s  account  of  thought  unreservedly  and  then  attempted  to 
impose  upon  it  the  requirements  of  the  logical  situation.  Lotze,  for 
instance,  affords  a  striking  example  of  the  dilemma  which  psychology, 
upon  assuming  the  responsibility  of  logic,  must  import  into  her  own 
domain.  Adapting  the  analysis  of  Lotze’s  position,  as  it  is  given  in  the 
Studies  in  Logical  Theory,^  to  the  point  at  issue  in  our  context,  we  note 
that  Lotze  gives  an  account  of  thought  as  a  series  of  impressions  and 
ideas,  following  each  other,  ‘coincidently.’  They  form  the  stuff  or  raw 
material  which  must  be  shaped  and  finally  transformed  by  logic  into  a 
‘coherent’  series  in  order  that  the  condition  of  knowledge  may  result. 
But  Lotze  finds  that  logical  procedure  can  make  no  difference  in  the 
impressions  and  ideas  if  logical  relations  do  not  already  exist  within  and 
between  them.  He  says:  “The  possibility  and  the  success  of  thought’s 
procedure  depends  upon  this  original  constitution  and  organization  of 
the  whole  world  of  ideas,  a  constitution  which,  though  not  necessary  in 
thought,  is  all  the  more  necessary  to  make  thinking  possible.”^ 

Yet  if  ideas  and  impressions  are  already  so  organized  into  logical 
coherences,  have  within  them  what  will  constitute  them  knowledge, 
logic  has  nothing  to  do.  We  should  say  that  Lotze  is  discussing  ‘  impres¬ 
sions  ’  and  ‘ideas,’  not  as  they  occur,  but  as  they  are  to  the  introspective 
psychologist.  As  the  psychologist  has  transfixed  them,  they  are  arrested 
stages  in  the  judgment  moment,  and  either  are,  or  are  not,  already 
logically  organized  meanings.  With  reference  to  each  other  as  ideas, 
they  stand  forever,  ‘coincident’  or  contiguous,  and  can  never  be  made 
to  ‘cohere’  with  each  other.  (Cf.  chap,  iv.)  The  stream  of  thought, 
made  up  of  these  existences,  cannot  be  directed  or  controlled.  As  the 
psychologist  welds  these  ideas  into  a  continuity,  he  must  needs  look  at 
them  as  determined  from  behind.  Teleology  and  mechanism  are  not 
merely  incompatible  here;  there  is  no  meaning  to  the  term  teleology 
as  applied  to  this  inner  process,  for  it  is  a  methodological  fiction,  and  not 
a  genuine  process  at  all.  The  preconception  common  to  both  of  the 
normative-positive  disputants  is  that  of  thought  as  an  inner  continuity. 
Psychology  is  not  called  upon  to  discuss  this  thought-process  as  directed 
and  controlled;  the  problem  is  not  pertinent. 

Again  both  parties  to  the  controversy  conceive  of  the  norm  as  a 
norm  for  a  thinking  process  of  this  character.  Psychology  has  full 
right  to  discuss  such  a  norm.  But  what  can  correct  or  incorrect  thinking 
mean  on  the  basis  of  the  stream-of-thought  conception  ?  Surely,  that 
there  is  something  inherent  in  the  process  itself  which  proclaims  it  at 

*  Cf.  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  chap.  ii.  ^  Lotze,  Logic,  1,  36. 


TYPICAL  STATEMENTS  OF  THE  RELATIONSHIP 


69 


once  a  case  of  genuine  thinking,  distinguishing  it,  for  instance,  from 
memory,  imitation,  emotion,  impulse.  In  this  sense,  psychology  means 
by  correct  reasoning  a  genuine  case  of  reasoning — that  this  or  that  is 
really  an  instance  or  example  of  reasoning  and  not  of  something  else. 
It  can  pronounce  dogmatically,  then,  that  incorrect  reasoning  is  not 
really  reasoning,  but  belongs,  rather,  to  som^e  other  phase  of  conscious¬ 
ness.  If,  for  instance,  a  conclusion  is  arrived  at  through  suggestion, 
imitation,  memory,  etc.,  psychology  can  pronounce  that  such  a  sequence 
cannot  be  designated  thinking,  or  reasoning.  Psychology,  indeed, 
makes  clear  demarkations  between  the  cognitive  and  affective  side  of 
consciousness,  teaching  that  the  cognitive  and  affective  aspects  are 
present  in  inverse  proportion.  It  is  a  curious  fact  that  it  is  logic^ 
which  now  tends  to  insist  that  feeling  and  emotion  be  included  in  the 
cognitive  activity,  and  that  the  lines  of  demarkation  be  softened,  if  not 
obliterated. 

If,  then,  psychology  claims  to  be  able  to  measure  the  truth  or  falsity 
of  the  cognitive  process  because  it  tells  an  exhaustive  story  and  cannot 
stop  short  of  the  outcome,  we  must  ask  if  the  outcome  is  not  something 
to  be  located  in  the  stream  itself.  If  it  is  without  the  process  as  an 
inner  continuity,  we  are  outside  the  boundaries  of  psychology.  Truth 
or  falsity,  for  psychology,  consistency  or  inconsistency,  must  be  a  matter 
referring  to  the  thought-process  as  an  inner  activity.  And  psychology 
has  every  right  then  to  decide  what  differentiae  certain  aspects  of  the 
stream  must  possess  in  order  to  be  called  reasoning;  it  can  rule  out  all 
cases  of  reasoning  which  do  not  measure  up,  and  assign  them  to  other 
psychological  categories. 

The  attempt  has  sometimes  been  made  to  distinguish  logic,  as  deal¬ 
ing  with  thought  as  general  and  abstract,  from  psychology  as  treating 
of  thought  as  specific  and  concrete.  Taking  this  distinction  at  face 
value,  it  is  possible  to  collect  as  formidable  a  row  of  antitheses  as  the 
list  of  Kantian  antinomies.  A  few  citations  will  suggest  the  lack  of  a 
common  denominator  in  the  discussion.  Baldwin  says: 

It  is  especially  to  be  noted  that  psychology  does  not  deal  with  abstractions 
as  its  distinctive  subject-matter.  Logic,  when  it  treats  of  judgments,  has  in 
view  only  the  abstract  form  of  connection  between  subject  and  predicate, 
not  the  concrete  judging  as  it  takes  place  in  the  individual  mind.  But  it  is 
just  this  concrete  process  with  which  psychology  is  concerned.^ 

*  Schiller,  Studies  in  Humanism,  chap.  iii. 

3  Baldwin,  Dictionary  of  Philosophy  and  Psychology,  article  “Psychology,” 
Vol.  II,  p.  383- 


70  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


This  statement  may  be  balanced  by  the  following : 

That  Psychology,  like  all  descriptive  science,  deals  throughout  with  data 
which  are  not  concrete  experience-realities,  but  artificial  products  of  a  process 
of  abstraction  and  reconstruction,  should  be  sufficiently  clear  from  the  very 
consideration  that,  like  other  sciences,  it  is  a  body  of  general  descriptions  of 
t5^ical  situations. 

An  actual  process  of  knowing  or  acting,  like  every  actual  event,  is  always 
individual  and  because  of  its  individuality  defies  adequate  description.  It  is 
only  in  so  far  as  a  situation  admits  of  being  generalized  by  the  selection  of  certain 
of  its  aspects  or  qualities  as  representative  of  its  whole  reality  that  it  is  capable 

of  being  described  at  all . It  [psychology]  provides  us  with  general 

formulae,  which  are  or  should  be  valuable  as  affording  a  means  of  describing 
certain  universal  features  of  the  process  of  willing  and  knowing  which  it  is 
desirable  to  study  in  isolation,  but  it  is  of  itself  as  incapable  of  following  the 
actual  course  of  a  real  process  of  willing  or  thinking,  as  mechanics  is  of  follow¬ 
ing  the  actual  course  of  a  real  individual  process  in  “external”  nature.^ 

In  answer  to  the  contention  that  logic  treats  of  the  intellect  per  se, 
investigating  knowledge  only,  as  it  were,  sub  specie  aeternitatis,  as  the 
possession  of  the  mind  in  general,  Mellone  says: 

Now  all  Psychology  may  be  said  to  deal  with  the  ^mind  in  general’  in 
the  sense  that  it  is  not  biography  nor  a  record  of  personal  peculiarities,  but 
deals  with  the  normal  mind.^ 

As  to  the  non-abstract  character  of  logic,  Dewey  says: 

So  far  from  this  point  of  view  the  various  types  and  modes  of  conceiving, 
judging,  and  inference  are  treated  not  as  qualifications  of  thought  per  se  or 
at  large,  but  of  thought  engaged  in  its  specific,  most  economic,  effective  response 
to  its  particular  occasion;  they  are  adaptations  for  control  of  stimuli.^ 

But  says  Baldwin: 

All  logic  is,  and  is  admitted  to  be,  formal  in  one  sense — as  having  to  deal 
with  the  general  laws  and  modes  of  thinking  by  which  knowledge  is  con¬ 
structed,  and  not  with  the  special  character  which  determines  each  type  of 
concrete  knowledge.  On  the  recognition  of  such  a  distinction  logic  is  based 
and  it  constitutes  the  common  element  in  all  conceptions  of  logic.^ 

The  view  adopted  in  this  paper,  namely,  that  there  is  no  activity 
of  thought  in  general,  but  that  logic  deals  with  thought  as  a  specific 
manifestation  in  a  concrete  situation,  places  our  decision  in  this  matter. 

^  Taylor,  Elements  of  Metaphysics,  p.  296. 

*  Mellone,  Philosophical  Criticism  and  Construction,  p.  42. 

3  Dewey,  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  p.  8. 

4  Baldwin,  Diet.  Phil,  and  Psych.,  article  “Formal  Logic,”  Vol.  I,  p.  392. 


TYPICAL  STATEMENTS  OF  THE  RELATIONSHIP 


71 


However,  as  a  formulation,  as  a  statement  of  theory,  it,  like  any  science, 
gives  an  account  of  typical  instances. 

While  eliminating  the  particular  material  of  particular  practical  and 
scientific  pursuits,  (i)  it  may  strive  to  hit  upon  the  common  denominator  in 
the  various  situations  which  are  antecedent  or  primary  to  thought  and  which 
evoke  it;  (2)  it  may  attempt  to  show  how  typical  features  in  the  specific 
antecedents  of  thought  call  out  to  diverse  typical  modes  of  thought-reaction; 
(3)  it  may  attempt  to  state  the  nature  of  specific  consequences  in  which  thought 
fulfils  its  career.^ 

In  the  same  way  we  should  designate  psychology  ‘‘general”  in 
that  it  deals  not  with  this  or  that  individual  but  with  typical  conditions 
and  performances  of  an  individual.  However,  as  far  as  the  cognitive 
process,  at  any  rate,  is  concerned,  psychology  deals  with  abstractions; 
especially  is  this  true  of  the  psychology  which  holds  to  the  “mental 
existence”  character  of  thought,  i.e.,  to  the  inner  continuity  of  the 
thought-process.  It  is,  at  best,  however,  a  blind  procedure  to  discuss 
particularity  and  generality,  abstractness  and  concreteness,  without  a 
definition  of  the  standpoint  from  which  these  distinctions  are  made; 
for  these  terms  are  obviously  not  absolute,  but  relative  to  context. 
The  question  may  be  discussed  more  profitably,  therefore,  with  reference 
to  the  more  specific  form  of  the  problem  which  is  next  to  be  reviewed. 

In  spite  of  the  immediate  acquiescence  of  the  psychologist  that  the 
retro-introspective  standpoint  differs  from  that  of  the  experient,  there 
is  not  only  the  tendency  to  put  back  into  working  relations  the  idea 
of  the  psychologist,  but  when  the  adjective  “psychological”  is  used, 
all  caution  to  preserve  the  distinction  between  the  experient’s  stand¬ 
point,  or,  as  it  is  sometimes  designated,  the  “psychical,”  and  the  “psy¬ 
chological”  is  abandoned.  The  “psychological”  tends  in  popular 
employment  of  the  term,  and  in  looser  technical  usage,  to  be  applicable 
to  whatever  is  intimately  connected  with  the  first-hand  experiences  of 
an  agent.  It  is  not  seen  that  such  a  discussion  as  the  relation  between 
the  “psychological”  and  the  “logical”  aspects  of  a  situation  is  usually 
conducted  on  the  basis  of  the  difference  between  the  “psychical”  and 
the  “logical.”  It  is  this  ambiguity  which  makes  well-nigh  irrefutable 
so  many  of  the  psychologist’s  claims  to  cover  the  whole  field  of  con¬ 
crete  experience,  inasmuch  as  every  process,  interest,  desire,  purpose, 
etc.,  is  called  forthwith  “psychological,”  i.e.,  not  merely  capable  of  being 
considered  from  the  psychological  standpoint,  but  is  designated  “psycho¬ 
logical  ’  ’  outright.  Schiller  is  an  arch-offender  in  this  particular.  He  says : 

*  Dewey,  Studies  in  Logical  Theory,  p.  7* 


72  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


Thus  it  is  commonly  asserted  that  Psychology  does  not  recognize  values, 
nor  Logic  care  about  psychical  existence.  Yet  if  so,  how  could  values  enter 
human  minds,  and  how  could  truths  ever  become  facts?  ^ 

He  continues  with  the  same  confusion  in  mind  when  he  states; 

We  shall  do  well  therefore  to  show  (i)  that  without  processes  which  are 
admittedly  psychological  the  occurrence  of  cognition  and  even  of  thinking  is 
impossible;  (2)  that  all  the  processes,  which  are  regarded  as  essentially  and 
peculiarly  “logical,”  have  a  well-marked  psychological  side  to  them,  and  that 
their  logical  treatment  develops  continuously  out  of  their  psychological  nature.^ 

Further: 

All  actual  thinking  appears  to  be  inherently  conditioned  throughout  by 
processes  which  even  the  most  grasping  logician  must  conceive  as  specifically 
psychological.  It  is  difficult  to  see,  therefore,  on  what  principle  logic  has  any 
business  to  ignore  them,  and  to  claim  to  be  “independent”  of  what  must 
influence  its  own  structure  in  every  fiber. 3 

The  following  passage  carries  on  the  same  identification  of  the  psy¬ 
chological  with  the  psychical  and  the  word  psychical  is  obviously  used 
as  a  completely  satisfactory  synonym. 

At  any  rate,  the  onus  prohandi  would  seem  to  lie  on  those  who  aflirm  that 
these  correlated  and  interpenetrating  processes  do  not  influence  each  other  and 
that,  therefore,  their  psychical  nature  may  be  treated  as  logically  irrelevant. 
Without,  however,  standing  on  ceremony,  let  us  show  by  examples  that  our 
thinking  depends  for  its  very  existence  on  the  presence  in  it  of  {a)  interest, 
{h)  purpose,  (c)  emotion,  {d)  satisfaction,  and  that  the  word  Thought’  would 
cease  to  convey  any  meaning  if  these  were  really  and  rigidly  abstracted  from.4 

Several  other  passages  show  unmistakably  that  these  terms  are  used 
as  completely  interchangeable,  for  he  says  that  ‘‘nowhere  can  we  dis¬ 
cover  anything  deserving  the  name  of  thought  which  is  not  actuated 
by  psychological  interest.”  Finally  he  sums  up  the  situation  with  the 
following : 

It  seems  clear,  therefore,  that  without  these  psychological  conditions  which 
have  been  mentioned,  thinking  disappears,  and  with  it,  presumably.  Logic. 
They  cannot,  therefore,  be  dispensed  with.  Purpose,  interest,  desire,  emotion, 
satisfaction,  are  more  essential  to  thinking  than  steam  is  to  a  steam-engine.s 

Schiller’s  aim  is  primarily  to  point  out  that  logic  cannot  be  “de¬ 
personalized,”  that  the  logician  cannot,  contrary  to  the  contention  of 

*  Schiller,  Studies  in  Humanism,  p.  76. 

^  Ibid,  p.  80  (italics  mine).  4  Ibid.,  p.  81  (last  italics  mine). 

3  Ibid.,  p.  80  (italics  mine).  s  Ibid.,  p,  83  (italics  mine). 


NATURE  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGISTS  ^‘PROCESSES” 


73 


the  absolutists,  ignore  the  concomitants  of  actual  thinking,  and  with 
that  immediate  purpose  in  mind  the  interchange  of  the  words  ‘  psychical  ’ 
and  ‘psychological’  seems  of  little,  if  any,  consequence.  The  issue  with 
which  Schiller  is  concerned  is  whether  logic  can  abstract  from  such 
influences  and  conditions  as  that  of  the  individual’s  purpose,  desire, 
interest,  etc.  But  granted  he  has  carried  his  assumption,  however 
heartily  we  may  agree  that  “purpose,  desire,  emotion,  satisfaction  are 
more  essential  to  thinking  than  steam  is  to  a  steam-engine,”  we  may  still 
fail  to  see  how  he  has  established  the  relation  between  logic  and  psy¬ 
chology,  and  may,  furthermore,  refuse  to  regard  purpose,  desire,  emotion, 
satisfaction,  as  “psychological”  processes.  If  these  processes  are 
“psychological”  per  se,  because,  as  Schiller  says,  “the  whole  concrete 
personality  goes  to  making  up  any  assertion,”  then  he  can  hardly 
maintain  that  logic  and  psychology  are  even  distinguishable.  By  the 
same  reasoning,  the  judgment  is  itself  simply  and  wholly  a  “psycho¬ 
logical”  process.  However,  if  psychology  thus  swallows  up  logic  it 
must  confess  to  a  double  standpoint  within  its  own  boundaries  and  the 
question  has  been  merely  restated,  for  with  the  coincidence  of  the 
‘psychical’  (as  Schiller  has  been  using  it)  and  the  psychological,  the 
introspective  standpoint  and  that  of  the  direct  experient  coincide,  and 
there  is  no  psychologist’s  fallacy;  thought  knows  its  object  and  intro¬ 
spects  its  own  behavior  at  the  same  moment.  Now  the  consequences 
of  designating  every  process  which  expresses  the  conscious  life  of  an 
individual  “psychological”  are  more  far-reaching  than  at  first  appears. 
Certainly  there  is  more  at  stake  than  the  narrower  issue  of  just  the 
proper  pigeonholing  of  these  two  disciplines,  for  if  emotion,  desire, 
purpose,  satisfaction  are  designated  psychological  processes,  there  are 
sure  to  attach  to  them  all  the  attributes  which  they  receive  at  the  hands 
of  the  psychologist  who  has  studied  them  from  the  traditional  intro¬ 
spective  standpoint.  They  are  the  conscious  processes  of  an  individual’s 
mind,  the  expression  of  a  concrete  personality,  to  be  sure,  but  psychology 
has  its  own  peculiar  and  distinctive  viewpoint  of  the  individual.  Viewed 
introspectively  the  individual  is  a  complete  integer,  having  relations 
with  other  individuals  but  after  all  a  unit,  definitely  isolable  from  other 
units  or  selves.  As  referable  to  this  individual,  emotion  and  feeling 
are  subjective,  satisfaction  is  the  satisfaction  of  a  need  of  this  or  that 
particular  and  peculiar  psycho-physical  organism,  desire  is  an  inner 
attitude,  thinking  or  judging  is  an  inner  process  coming  somehow  to 
fruit  in  an  overt  act  which  means  a  right  or  wrong  adjustment  of  this 
individual.  As  “psycho-”  this  individual  has  a  consciousness  insulated 


74  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


from  others,  as  “physical”  it  has  a  body  defining  itself  over  against  this 
consciousness. 

It  is  precisely  because  the  psychologist’s  reading  of  the  individual 
is  so  generally  adopted  that  logicians  find  the  individual  an  inadequate 
mechanism  for  securing  truth.  Schiller’s  humanism  has  precisely  this 
difiiculty  to  contend  with,  for  it  starts  from  “experience” — ^from  ‘your’ 
experience  and  ‘my’  experience,  from  an  experience  definitely  owned 
and  marked  ofi  at  the  start  as  the  peculiar  and  private  possession  of 
just  such  an  individual  as  the  psychologist  presents  to  us.  Small 
wonder  that  the  logicians  refuse  to  grant  that  this  individual’s  subjective 
prepossessions  and  prejudices  and  desires  can  have  anything  to  do  with 
universally  valid  truth.  On  the  contrary,  they  maintain  that  psychology 
may  deal  with  thought  as  it  is  valid  for  the  individual  in  circumstances 
local  and  specific,  but  not  with  thought  in  its  aspect  of  universality 
and  necessity.  Eternal  truths  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  subjectivity 
and  vagary  of  the  individual.  Judgments  which  have  their  basis  in 
individual  perceptions,  observations,  memories,  expectations,  are  the 
province  of  psychology,  but  logic  deals  only  with  the  conditions  of  uni¬ 
versally  valid  thought.  Jerusalem  distinguishes  logic  from  psychology 
on  this  ground. 

Man  konnte  demnach  die  Logik  auch  bestimmen  als  die  Lehre  von  den 

allgemeinen  Bedingungen  des  richtigen  Urtheilens . Aber  nicht  an  alien 

Urtheilen  sind  solche  allgemeine  Bedingungen  ihrer  Richtigkeit  festzustellen. 
Eine  grosse  Zahl  von  Urtheilen  dient  dazu,  individuelle  Wahrnehmungen, 
Errinnerungen,  Erwartungen  zu  formalieren  und  auszudrucken.  Alle  solche 
Urtheile,  ich  nenne  sie  Urtheile  der  Anschauung,  haben  ihrer  Natur  nach 
nur  subjective  Gewissheit  und  geben  daher  zu  logischer  Priifung  keinen  Anlass. 
Eine  solche  Priifung  kann  nur  Urtheilen  vorgenommen  werden,  welche  nicht 
individuell  bestimmte  und  individuell  gefarbte  Thatsachen  bezeichnen,  sondern 
vielmehr  ein  Ausdruck  sind  fiir  Gesetze  des  Geschehens.  Solche  Urtheile 
nennen  wir  Begrilfsurtheile,  und  nur  diese  konnen  Gegenstand  logischer 
Priifung  werden.^ 

Once  this  distinction  is  made  between  judgments  which  are  merely 
individual  and  those  which  are  objective  and  hold  universally,  it  is  easy 
to  sever  process  and  product  and  to  hold  that  eternally  valid  truths  exist 
without  reference  to  the  judging  individual.  The  process  of  judging, 
and,  indeed,  the  specific  meaning  of  the  judgment  moment,  may  be 
dealt  with  by  psychology,  but  absolute  and  unconditioned  truth  only 
logic  may  discuss.  Husserl,  who  states  that  psychology  has  to  do  with 

^  Jerusalem,  Einleitung  in  die  Philosophie,  p.  31. 


NATURE  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGIST’S  “PROCESSES” 


75 


the  individual,,  the  contingent,  the  fact  existing  in  time  and  space,  dis¬ 
tinguishes  truth  from  facts.  Truth,  that  is,  is  not  factual;  it  has  no 
existence  in  time  and  space.  Facts  are  contingent,  individual  existences, 
which  come  and  go,  but  truth  is  eternal  and  timeless,  and  has,  finally, 
no  dependence  on  the  individual  who  judges. 

Keine  Wahrheit  ist  eine  Thatsache,  d.i.  ein  zeitlich  Bestimmtes.  Fine 
Wahrheit  kann  freilich  die  Bedeutung  haben,  dass  ein  Ding  ist,  ein  Zustand 
besteht,  eine  Verandening  von  Statten  geht  u.  dgl.  Aber  die  Wahrheit  selbst 
ist  fiber  alle  Zeitlichkeit  erhaben,  d.h.  es  hat  keinen  Sinn,  ihr  zeitliches  Sein, 
Entstehen,  oder  Vergehen  zuzuschreiben  ....  immer  wieder  werden  wir 
sehen,  dass  dieser  Unterschied  ffir  die  Streitfragen  zwischen  psychologistischer 
und  reiner  Logik  entscheidend  ist.^ 

Husserl  thus,  in  a  manner  not  unlike  Bradley’s  exposition,  separates 
the  logical  content  from  the  act  of  judgment.^  The  content  which 
is  cut  loose  from  the  idea  as  psychical  existence  stands  for  the  Wahrheit, 
or  the  eternal  universal.  The  realm  of  Wahrheiten  which  Husserl 
describes  suggests,  too,  Bosanquet’s  world  of  meanings  which  are  inde¬ 
pendent  of  the  acts  of  judging  by  which  they  are  expressed.^  As  he 
puts  it:  “Man  vermenge  nicht  das  Urtheil  als  Urtheilsinhalt,  d.i.  als 
die  ideale  Einheit  mit  dem  einzelnen  realen  Urtheilsakt.” 

Were  the  content  of  the  judgment  dependent  upon  the  judging 
process,  were  truth,  that  is,  dependent  upon  the  judging  activity  of 
the  individual,  it  would  be  hopelessly  relative;  indeed  knowledge 
would  be  impossible.  Husserl  maintains  that  the  case  is  little  better 
if  the  individual  is  regarded  as  socially  conditioned,  or  even  if  we  regard 
him  as  expressing  the  constitution  of  the  human  species.  Other  species, 
other  truths,  he  proclaims.  Nay,  the  species  may  die  out  but  truth 
remains  inextinguishable,  and  invulnerable  to  the  activities  of  the 
individual,  or  of  the  species.  The  realm  of  Wahrheiten  exists  eternally 
whether  the  human  species  ever  enters  into  its  possession  or  not. 

Thatsachen  sind  “zufallig”,  sie  konnten  ebensogut  auch  nicht  sein,  sie 
konnten  anders  sein.  Also  “andere”  Thatsachen,  andere  logische  Gesetze; 
auch  diese  waren  also  zufallig,  sie  waren  nur  relativ  zu  den  sie  begrfindenden 
Thatsachen.4 

Hat  (im  Sinne  des  Anthropologismus)  alle  Wahrheit  ihre  ausschliessliche 
Quelle  in  der  allgemein  menschlichen  Constitution,  so  gilt,  dass  wenn  keine 
solche  Constitution  bestande,  auch  keine  Wahrheit  bestande.s 

*  Husserl,  Logische  Untersuchungen,  I,  76-77. 

2  Bradley,  Logic,  chap.  i.  ^  Husserl,  Logische  Untersuchungen,  I,  122. 

3  Bosanquet,  Logic,  I,  5  f.  ®  Ibid.,  p.  119. 


76  RESPECTIVE  STANDPOINTS  OF  PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LOGIC 


The  Formalisten-Psychologisten  debate  is  analogous  to  the  con¬ 
troversy  between  the  absolutists  and  the  humanist-pragmatists  as  to 
^‘whether  logic  can  abstract  from  the  psychological  conditions  of 
thinking.”^  Husserhs  scholarly  and  voluminous  work  anticipates  and 
attempts  to  meet  some  of  the  more  recent  claims  and  arguments  of  the 
humanists.  The  “  Psychologisten  ”  and  the  humanists  are  agreed,  in 
substance,  that  there  is  a  close  and  vital  connection  between  the  judging 
individual — his  concrete  setting  of  interest,  emotion,  purposes,  and  biases 
— and  the  meaning  or  content  of  the  judgment.  On  the  one  hand,  the 
controversy  runs,  truths  which  are  removed  from  the  individual’s  needs, 
interests,  and  desires,  and  which  are  in  no  way  determined  by  these,  are 
meaningless.  On  the  other  hand,  the  absolutists  and  the  formalists  join 
forces  in  maintaining  that  truth,  which  is  dependent  upon  the  indivi¬ 
dual’s  wants,  and  whose  validity  rests  upon  the  degree  in  which  it  fulfils 
them,  is  hopelessly  relative,  for  it  has  no  applicability  beyond  the  area 
of  individual  caprice. 

Each  party  is  guilty  of  the  same  fallacy.  Both  sides  view  the  indi¬ 
vidual  as  the  isolated  individual  of  the  psychologist’s  introspective 
standpoint.  Husserl  is  right  in  implying  that  the  social  nature  of  the 
individual  cannot  avail  to  extend  the  validity  of  his  judgment  to  uni¬ 
versality;  it  can  at  best  give  it  a  little  wider  generality.  For  society, 
with  the  psychologist’s  individual  as  the  unit  of  structure,  could  be 
simply  a  multiple  or  aggregate  of  particulars.  The  humanist  may  insist 
as  much  as  he  pleases  that  the  whole  concrete  personality  enters  as  a 
determining  factor  into  the  content  of  the  judgment,  but  the  absolutist, 
accepting  the  psychologist’s  account  of  personality,  hesitates  the  more 
to  read  truth,  absolute,  eternal,  and  necessary,  as  the  fulfilment,  or 
satisfaction,  of  this  individual.  Accordingly  if  truth  is  the' satisfaction 
of  a  need,  it  is  doomed  at  least  twofold  to  particularity  and  subjectivity; 
for  the  need  belongs  to  this  peculiar  and  particular  psycho-physical 
organism,  and  the  satisfaction  is  merely  a  registration  of  its  fulfilment, 
which  may  vary  from  day  to  day.  Thus  truths  may  be  many  and  fickle, 
contingent  not  necessary,  particular  not  universal,  subjective  not 
objective;  in  short,  truth  would  be,  to  quote  a  familiar  refrain  from  the 
critics  of  pragmatism,  mere  “individual  expediency.” 

It  is  largely  in  the  interest  of  establishing  the  claim  for  the  soundness 
of  the  pragmatist’s  criterion  of  truth  that  a  distinction  be  made  between 
logic  and  psychology,  especially  to  the  end  that  it  may  become  evident 
that  instrumental  logic  views  the  “whole  concrete  personality”  in  a 
setting  very  different  from  that  of  the  psychologist.  There  ought, 

^  Schiller,  Studies  in  Humanism^  chap.  iii. 


NATURE  OF  THE  PSYCHOLOGISTS  PROCESSES^’ 


77 


thus,  to  be  a  different  interpretation  of  ^satisfaction,’  and  of  ‘need,’ 
if  there  is  a  different  interpretation  of  the  individual. 

The  particularity  and  isolatedness  of  the  individual,  which  psy¬ 
chology  construes  into  a  sort  of  permanent  subjectivity,  occurs  only  at 
certain  crises  in  the  evolution  of  reality.  In  the  tensional  moment, 
when  idea  and  object  stand  apart,  and  reality  is,  so  to  speak,  uncertain 
of  itself,  the  individual  as  particular  is  born;  reality  is  thrown  back  on 
its  own  uniqueness.  It  is  at  this  moment  that  the  logical  need  appears — 
the  need  to  overcome  this  ‘subjectivity,’  this  inclosedness  of  idea  to 
idea,  but  at  the  same  time  the  necessity  for  overcoming  the  isolation, 
the  non-sharability  of  the  opposing  ‘external  reality.’  The  partiality, 
or  fragmentariness,  which  characterizes  reality  as  individual  is  precisely 
the  cause  of  the  birth  of  this  need — the  individual’s  need  of  finding 
himself  by  losing  himself  in  a  wider  cosmic  continuity.  Though  expressed 
through  the  mechanism  of  what  the  psychologist  calls  the  psycho¬ 
physical  organism,  this  need  is  of  the  logical  and  not  of  the  psychological 
individual;  it  is  the  need  of  the  individual  as  emerging  from  a  reality 
matrix,  and  as  issuing  again  into  a  new  individuality,  i.e.,  into  fuller 
consistency  with  a  new  social  and  cosmic  environment,  which,  indeed, 
has  been  instituted  through  his  agency.  It  is  because  the  individual 
is  conceived  as  particular,  initially,  that  satisfactions  of  his  needs  are 
made  to  pertain  wholly  to  the  domain  of  his  particularity;  but  the  satis¬ 
faction  of  the  logical  need  is  that  which  will  make  him  consistent  with 
reality.  Consistency,  truth,  will  be  that  which  will  enable  him  to  ‘go 
along  with’  the  sequential,  onward,  unimpeded  passage  of  reality  from 
one  level  to  another.  Thus  the  satisfaction  of  the  need  is  not  merely  a 
subjective  registration  that  a  certain  state  of  consciousness  has  been 
achieved,  but  it  is  a  satisfaction,  a  fulfilling,  of  ajffairs.  It  means  that 
reality  and  personality  are  become  one;  the  individual  is  most,  because 
he  is  least.  It  means  that  the  individual  has  become  impersonal,  and 
that  reality  has  been  personalized. 

These  moments  in  which  the  individual  exists  are,  so  to  speak, 
the  attention  moments  of  the  whole  cosmic  habit.  They  are  the  occa¬ 
sions  of  the  reconstructions  of  old  cosmic  habits,  and  the  reorganization 
of  new  ones.  As  media  of  control  and  development,  they  cannot  sever 
themselves  from  the  ‘stubborn  grain  of  things,’  and  circulate  purely 
subjective  judgments.*  Hence  a  judgment  which  really  satisfies, 
i.e.,  has  as  its  consequences  the  union  of  reality  and  idea  into  a  new 
status  that  makes  possible  the  fluent  passage  into  other  levels  of  expe¬ 
rience,  has  in  so  far  forth  achieved  truth — universal,  necessary,  objective. 

^  Cf.  chap.  iii. 


